


How to Keep the Love of Your Life After Mistaking Him For a Serial Killer

by reeology



Category: Original Work
Genre: Awkward First Times, M/M, Romance, Slash, accidental stalking, also quite purposeful and creepy stalking, m/m - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-25
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-18 18:25:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2357789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeology/pseuds/reeology
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Randy's experience with obsessive ex-boyfriends has made him more than a little bit paranoid. But when his paranoia gets the best of him and he mistakes his eccentric (and eccentrically cute) neighbor for a serial killer, Randy has a lot of making up to do if he wants poor Dave to forgive him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010 and published as an e-novella by Dreamspinner Press in 2011. All rights reverted to me in 2014.
> 
> ps I have a tumblr if you are interested: reeology

The first time I saw him, I thought he was a stalker. It was the eyes that did it. They glinted eerily as he watched me from behind his matted hair, his vantage point way too close for comfort. He’d slouched up a few feet away from me at first, waiting at the same crosswalk with me, but then he’d slowly shuffled his way a bit closer as the seconds ticked by.

Past experience had given me unusually sharp perception when it came to shady characters, and this guy definitely fit the bill. Yeah, maybe I’d gotten a little paranoid in the last few months, but he was demonstrating some classic stalker behavior. My apartment building was only two blocks away, so I told myself I would be okay as long as I stuck with the crowd and didn’t make eye contact until I got home.

Of course, being an idiot, I immediately made eye contact.

I glanced behind me while I waited for the flashing red hand to disappear, thinking he was still to my left. Instead, he was directly behind me, with crazy Charles Manson hair and a thin black cardigan. His eyes pierced mine, and the back of my neck prickled. I quickly looked the other way; even though the weather was hot and muggy, I hugged my arms around myself to fight off a sudden chill.

The red hand gave way to the walk sign and I hurried forward. The can of soup in my plastic bag of groceries banged against my knee with every step but I studiously ignored it. Against my better judgment, I looked behind me again. With a sinking heart, I noticed Charles Manson was still following me.

He’d put on sunglasses—to shield his eyes from the early May sun, I guessed. It made me think of the Unabomber more than Charles Manson, which in turn made me reconsider my initial stalker conclusion. The way things were going, he definitely seemed like more of a serial killer. And for Christ’s sake, he had long legs, a thin torso, and a well-fitted sweater, so perhaps he had some Norman Bates in him as well. None of these were great things.

I kept my cool and didn’t panic. My feet carried me up the concrete steps to my apartment building, up to the reflective double glass doors that led into the lobby. I was even congratulating myself on not living the stereotype and sprinting down the street to get away until I saw the reflection of Charles Unabomber Bates putting his foot down on the first step of my building. It was at that point I decided panic sounded like an excellent idea.

I was pretty sure I was going to die.

I was even more certain of my imminent death when I boarded the rickety, smoke-smelling elevator and began mashing the “close doors” button with my thumb like my life depended on it—literally. My heart thudded against my ribcage in frightful lurches as I watched him sweep into the lobby. He flipped up his sunglasses, surveyed the room, and looked straight into my eyes.

He called out in an accent I didn’t recognize, “Um, excuse me! Could you hold that for me, please?”

It didn’t really sound like the voice of a serial killer, but I was too freaked out to care. I most certainly did not hold the elevator. I pounded the button with renewed vigor and the sharp adrenaline rush of self-preservation. Thankfully, through some act of God (or science), the metal doors slid closed. I caught a glimpse of Charles Unabomber Bates giving me a dirty look as he pushed through a side door to the sketchy stairwell.

For a moment I was completely seized by panic. I wondered if he somehow knew where I lived, but real-life experience with stalkers told me that if he’d truly been staking me out I would have received some form of contact before now. Momentarily comforted, I hit the button for the third floor and waited for the doors to ding open.

When they did, I realized I was, indeed, an idiot. Across the hall, Charles Unabomber Bates had beaten me by taking the stairs. He was struggling with the door across from mine—with a key—and he unlocked it within moments of my departure from the elevator. It was with an emotion akin to horror that I realized he wasn’t a stalker _or_ a serial killer: he was my neighbor, and I hadn’t held the stupid elevator.

“Oh my God,” I said aloud before I could stop. I found myself instantly at his side without any sort of consent from the logical half of my brain. I was sure I looked as terrified as I felt. At least this time it was out of embarrassment, not fear. My face felt so hot that I knew I had to be blushing. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you lived here. I thought you were stalking me or something.” I winced as soon as I said it, because it wasn’t a very flattering thing to accuse someone of. But there it was, hanging between us, too stupid and too late to take back.

“I’ve lived here since September,” my neighbor—God, my _neighbor_ , I was such an idiot—said with a sour expression. He opened his door and gave me a look that clearly meant he wanted me to leave. But I didn’t want to leave. I wanted my neighbor to like me, or at least not to hate me. Hateful neighbors tended to lead to keyed cars and stolen mail and noise-violation reports on weeknights when I talked to my aquarium too loudly at three in the morning because I couldn’t sleep. Not that I did that. Often.

“I don’t get out much,” I explained, a touch desperately. I refrained from adding that I stayed inside because I was technically unemployed, unless you counted selling melted wine bottle paraphernalia on Etsy.com. Most of my nights were spent drinking the wine to make the cheese boards and wind chimes I sold, while watching ridiculous shows like _Toddlers & Tiaras_.

My neighbor looked spectacularly unimpressed. “Forget it,” he said, stepping inside. He raised his eyebrows, evidently expecting me to back off.

“I’ll make it up to you,” I blurted before I could think about it too much. “I’ll buy you coffee.”

“I’m in a hurry,” he said with a glare. His sunglasses were perched on top of his head now and I could finally see his eyes were dark brown.

I sighed, rubbing the back of my neck. I would have assured him that I normally wasn’t such a neurotic freak show, but it would have been a lie.

I bit my lip and said, “Okay. Some other time, I guess?”

He closed the door without commenting.

* * * 

Later, while trying to steal free Internet, I saw a wireless network called “David’s Apartment” pop up. I knew with a twisting, embarrassing certainty that Charles Unabomber Bates’s real name was actually David. At that point, I had resigned myself to the idea of him hating me for the rest of our time living next to each other. I was determined not to dwell on it, despite the fact that “not dwelling” never went well for me.

In an attempt to distract myself, I was using my oven as a kiln with mixed results: the Sculpey beads I’d made were perfect, but the green wine bottle I planned on turning into a decorative cheese board sat unchanged on the cookie tray, round and peaceful, taunting me. I was stealing free Internet to track down a real kiln to use so I didn’t end up with more too-hot-to-pick-up-but-not-hot-enough-to-melt bottles.

I got sidetracked when my cell phone rang.

I flipped it open without checking the name and said, “Hello?”

“Randy!” I cringed as an overly excited and high-pitched voice greeted me. I couldn’t have regretted my decision more.

“Hi, Lilah,” I said, suddenly feeling tired. Lilah could be a bit much at times, but she was my closest and only friend since moving here. I was mostly accustomed to her supersonic squealing, but it was still painful to listen to.

“You sound chipper,” she mused.

“Bad day,” I hedged, giving up on my search for a kiln and climbing to my feet instead. I walked over to my fish tank and leaned forward, watching the neon tetras flash around between the fake plants. Smiling, I tapped on the glass and waved to them. They vanished behind the pink-and-yellow castle.

“Then I’ve got just the thing for you,” Lilah said, oblivious to my fish snubbing me. “There’s a party tonight. Can I count you in?”

“Partying is for college students and high schoolers,” I recited like a long-learned lesson, even though I knew I’d end up going. I was already shaking food flakes into the top of the tank. I didn’t want to forget to feed the fish later when I inevitably staggered home drunk.

Lilah made a pleased noise and said, “Great, I’ll see you there. It’s by your place, so I’ll just meet up with you and we’ll go together. I’ll see you at like nine, okay?”

I nodded despite the fact that Lilah couldn’t see it and said, “Yeah, sure. How should I dress?”

“Hot,” she replied without missing a beat. “It’s a drinking party.”

I rolled my eyes. “Like there’s any other kind.” I couldn’t wait to be an old man and have bridge parties with cucumber sandwiches and tea, because part of me thought that sounded totally badass. A drinking party wasn’t bad either, though, because it at least gave me an excuse to empty another bottle of wine to melt. If I ever found a kiln.

“Great. See you then,” Lilah chirped and hung up.

“Great,” I echoed without feeling and shut my phone. Sighing, I tossed it at the couch, where it bounced off a cushion and landed on the floor. Nobody else was going to call me, so I left it there and went to shower.

* * * 

Lilah showed up at around eight thirty and predictably tore my outfit apart. Pants too loose, flip-flops too casual, hair not styled. I suffered through the critique and made the appropriate changes, including putting on a belt she “just happened” to have in her purse. It even matched the shoes she made me wear.

It was pointless to argue with her. At least she had a good eye for fashion—as always, she looked her absolute best. Her long hair was swept up into a messy bun, her bangs falling in a strategic swoop over her eyes. The sequins on her tank top were going to give me a headache by the end of the night, but she looked hot regardless. Well, as hot as a gay man could honestly designate her.

She grinned at me as though she knew what I was thinking and said, “Ready to go?”

I nodded. “Ready.”

After checking on the fish and taking my failed wine bottle out of the oven (because I didn’t want to burn the apartment down), we went outside and I locked my door. I hooked my key ring onto my belt loop and tried not to look nervous, the way I knew I always did whenever I ventured out of my hermit cave.

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Right there.” She pointed to David’s apartment and I paled.

“No,” I said, shaking my head, and backed up against my door, shoes planted stubbornly on the crummy gray hallway carpet. “I can’t. You don’t get it. I thought he was a serial killer this morning and now he hates me.”

She tilted her head sideways. “I don’t quite follow that logic.”

“I’m an idiot,” I said mournfully.

“Clearly.” Rolling her eyes, Lilah grabbed my elbow and frog-marched me to David’s door. She knocked before I had the chance to escape.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“Fixing your mistakes.” Her judgmental expression transformed into something welcoming and affectionate as the door swung inward. It was David, blinking owlishly into the light of the hallway. He was wearing another cardigan, navy this time, and he smiled widely at us despite the fact that he’d just been giving me death glares a few hours ago. His hair was still vaguely Charles Manson-esque, although it had clearly been brushed for the party.

“Hullo, come on in,” he said with that hard-to-place accent, stepping aside so we could walk in. He kissed Lilah’s cheek and waved at me with the beer in his hand.

“You’re David, right?” I asked just to ensure I wouldn’t make even more of an ass out of myself tonight.

“Yeah, and you’re Randy.” It seemed he was so toasted already that he couldn’t be bothered to remember or care about my infractions earlier.

I blinked rapidly, the old fear that he was a creep returning full force.

“Yeah, um, how did you know my name?”

David gestured vaguely with his beer. “Read it off the buzzer downstairs.”

“Oh right,” I said, blushing. “That was smart. I guessed off your wireless.”

I flushed darker when he didn’t reply. My turn to be creepy, apparently. I cleared my throat, looking around for something to distract myself with, and started picking tortilla chips out of a plastic bowl on the counter. Standing in his apartment felt bizarre. It was a mirror image of mine, so it felt familiar, but with a saggy blue couch and a chipped coffee table and no wine bottles in sight, melted or otherwise. Well, except for the bottle of velvet red I’d brought with me, which I set on the counter. It was eerie.

David eventually ambled off to greet other guests, and Lilah turned to me with an amused expression.

“That could have gone worse,” she said, stealing one of my chips and crunching it noisily between her teeth. I ignored her.

I ended up doing two shots of something putrid within a few minutes of being at the drink table, which was enough to make me nice and tingly. It was also enough to convince me that it was a really, really good idea to try to make full amends and possibly become besties with David.

It really, really wasn’t.

“It’s your fault if I never get laid,” David reported as I approached.

I was appropriately confused. “What?”

Scowling, he motioned at the back of a retreating woman in a skanky tank top and short shorts.

“I don’t get it,” I said, blinking.

“We were having a nice conversation that could have possibly led to sex, but then you walked up and she left.”

I frowned. “How is that my fault?”

“Oh, you know,” he said, pointing at me.

Still perplexed, I followed his gaze and looked down at myself. My shoes were maybe a little too “fabulous,” as was my shirt… and my pants.

Amused, I looked back up and said, “Do they think I’m staking a claim?”

“I don’t know,” said David, looking very much like he did know, and yes, he thought that was exactly it.

“Sorry,” I said without the slightest trace of remorse.

David shrugged, wandering over to the kitchen counter, which was strewn with various bottles of alcohol: a case of beer, some vodka in plastic bottles, my lone bottle of red wine, and other, fancier stuff, one bottle of which David hefted up and gazed at appreciatively.

“I don’t know who brought this, but I think it’s mine now,” he said. He turned toward a doorway and then hesitated, looking back at me. His eyes swept up and down my frame, contemplating, and added, “You coming, then?”

Thinking over the two shots I’d had and the pleasant fizzle in my belly, I decided that I was slightly tipsy but not drunk. I cracked a smile.

“Sure, why not?” I said.

The “why not” became swiftly apparent as he led me to his bedroom and I was momentarily seized by the fear that this was going to end tragically. Maybe he was going to get me drunk and take advantage of me.  And then kill me, if he really was a serial killer.

Then reality kicked in and I remembered that he’d lived here for eight months. If he’d wanted to do something sinister he’d already had plenty of opportunity.

It wasn’t a lot in the way of reassurances, but it got me in his room. He left the door cracked and that was enough to let me breathe again. I rolled my shoulders and looked around his room, noting with surprise that it was fairly clean: a futon to sleep on, a pressboard desk, and a dresser with only one drawer pulled out. The desk was cluttered with books and papers, but the floor was clean and all his laundry was put away. I might have been a little impressed. Maybe.

David flopped on his mattress with whatever blue-ish alcohol he’d swiped and twisted the cap off. He took a generous swig and wiped his mouth.

“Tastes tropical,” he announced, holding out the bottle. “Try it, yeah?”

“Uh, okay,” I said. I sat uneasily on the edge of his bed and took the bottle. Our fingers brushed, but David either didn’t notice or didn’t care, which I thought was odd for a guy who’d just been trying to score with some woman in the living room. Then again, he’d also invited me alone into his bedroom with a bottle of booze, so maybe it wasn’t that weird after all. I had to remind myself that there were still bisexuals in the world.

So I drank. I didn’t know what David’s definition of “tropical” was, but it was nowhere near mine. It tasted like unmixed alcohol that could be really delicious if it was combined with something less alcoholic. There must have been some serious face-making on my part, because I heard David laughing at me. I took three or four small, wimpy sips before I remembered this was David’s party and it would be rude to hog the bottle. I coughed after an unfortunately large gulp and passed it back.

David immediately started drinking again, his head tilted back and the bottle raised up like in a television commercial. I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, and I watched it long enough that I turned pink and looked away to study the bedspread. It was reversible: blue on one side, red on the other.

God. I could still hear him slurping. Subject change time.

“We need drinking food,” I declared.

“Cake!” David said immediately.

Mmm. Cake. Not necessarily drinking food, but tasty nonetheless.

“Cake would be good,” I conceded dreamily.

“No, no, I made a nice cake for the party. Wait a tic, hold this.” He pushed the bottle into my hands and clambered off the futon. “It’s a delicious cake. I’ll be right back.”

He took off out the door and then poked his head back in a few seconds later.

“Don’t go through any of my stuff,” he warned before he disappeared again. That, of course, only made me want to go through his stuff really badly.

It took all of my self-control and sitting on my hands to keep me from rifling through his desk drawers. My attention waned the longer he took, and I ended up lying down across the sheets, the bottle of booze on the floor and my head on David’s pillow. In retrospect, that was probably weird, a little too prematurely intimate. The shots and blue tropical stuff must have been stronger than I realized, because I wasn’t at all bothered by it. I was even half-dozing by the time David burst back into the room, toting a giant slice of chocolate cake on a white plate.

“Oh my God, cake!” I sat up dizzyingly fast and held out my hands to accept the plate. My face-splitting grin was one hundred percent about the chocolate frosting, which I began devouring by hand since David had forgotten to bring a fork.

It was just as well, because from the moment I got my first mouthful, I was reduced to a kindergartener. It was probably an alarming sight for David, but I was too cozy and fabulously tipsy to care.

“What’s in this?” I asked between bites, wiping frosting from my lips. “Crack?”

“Cinnamon,” he boasted proudly, unfazed by my disturbing eating habits. He climbed onto the futon and settled down next to me on his back.

“That’s it?” I probed, disbelieving. “That’s the secret?” It sounded so simple, and yet the best answers usually were.

“There are lots of secrets.” David’s grin was kind of goofy as he turned onto his side, cheek smashed against the pillow. I wondered if he’d sneaked another drink while he was out getting cake.

“What are the other secrets?” I had to know.

“Can’t tell you,” he said, shaking his head. “Mum would kill me.”

“Mum,” I echoed, brow furrowing. There was that accent again. It wasn’t British, but it wasn’t Australian, either. What the hell was it? “Where are you from?”

“New Zealand.”

“That’s incredibly hot,” I said, and then flushed as soon as I realized what I’d said.

“Only in the summer,” David mumbled into his pillow. I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

Despite my reddening cheeks, I decided to clarify. I could always blame it on the alcohol. “No, I meant that your accent is attractive.”

“Oh.” David raised his head, blinking, and suddenly looked pinker than he had before. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. I murmured my thanks as David drunkenly took my now-empty plate and set it on the dresser. Since I was done eating, I decided to join him in flopping on the futon, and I lay on my side to study him. He looked exceptionally mellow, relaxing into a pile of pillows in mismatched cases. He was actually fairly attractive if I overlooked his hair. “How come you don’t have a girlfriend?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he asked, oddly serious.

That was like an invitation to stare at him some more, right? I took the opportunity to squint at him, taking in his wide, feminine mouth, straight nose, and eyes so brown they were almost black. It had probably only been his uncombed hair and my own neuroses that had made me mistake him for Charles Unabomber Bates upon our first meeting.

“You could use a haircut,” I decided after a long silence.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” He yawned suddenly, rolling onto his side away from me, and burrowed his face against his pillow.

His actions struck me like a lightning bolt.

“Uh,” I said, stiffening. “Was that my sign to leave?”

David shrugged, waving an uncoordinated hand in the air.

“I think I’ll have a nap,” he said. “You can do whatever.”

“Oh.” Frowning, I noticed that his bed was set up in the corner of the room with the foot bumping up against his desk. Since I was on the inside toward the wall, I would either have to climb over David or crawl on his desk to get out. I decided to settle down on top of the covers, my arm pressed against the coldness of the wall, and closed my eyes. “I’m tired too,” I said. “I guess I’ll just stay here.”

David grunted in response. I bit my lip.

“Um, if you get weird or anything,” _because I’m clearly gay and you’re sending mixed signals,_ “you can just push me on the floor or something. I won’t be offended.”

“You’re fine,” David mumbled sleepily. “The drinks hit me a bit all at once and I need to have a quick nap. That’s all.”

“Okay.” Even though David couldn’t see me, or perhaps because of it, I smiled and folded my arms on top of my chest with a deep, contented sigh. Sharing a bed with him wasn’t as uncomfortable as I would have expected, especially considering I’d thought he was a serial killer only a few hours ago. It was a double mattress and I was pretty thin, so we weren’t touching but we weren’t curled up in little balls on opposite sides of the bed, either. It was a nice state of no contact without extreme effort, and I easily fell asleep with my head lolling to the side and my bangs tickling my forehead.

Hours later, I woke up feeling like someone had taken an entire roll of paper towels and stuffed it in my head through my nose. The pressure behind my eyes was overwhelming, and I rolled over, rubbing my temples. According to the clock on David’s desk, it was only one o’clock. At some point someone had shut his bedroom door, so the sounds of people talking and drinking and listening to music in the living room were muted. Next to me, David was still asleep, dead to the world. I poked his shoulder experimentally and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t stir.

“David?” I asked. My voice was surprisingly loud in his empty room, and I cringed. David, however, didn’t even bat an eye.

There was still a pile of books and papers on David’s desk. It was either knock over all his stuff or climb over him.

 _Oh, what the hell,_ I thought, and inelegantly swung my leg over him. I had a moment of sheer terror where I thought David was waking up and he was going to open his eyes to find me half on top of him, but luckily he just snorted and scratched his cheek. I stayed there for a moment, frozen in place, before I finally coaxed my muscles into gear and rolled onto the floor with a thud. Gauging by my clumsy dismount, I was still tipsy, but nothing terribly debilitating.

I waddled outside and shut the door softly behind me. I was ready to slink back across the hall to my apartment and pass out when Lilah ambushed me. She looked like she’d been camped  out there waiting for me the entire time. And heck, for all I knew, she could have been.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, latching onto my arm with wide eyes. She searched my face, taking in my disheveled hair and sleepy, sated expression, and dug in her red-lacquered nails. “You guys totally did it, didn’t you?”

“What? No. God, no. What?” I stuttered, looking behind me at David’s closed door, and blushed straight to the tips of my ears, which didn’t really help the situation. I hustled Lilah somewhere David couldn’t hear, or at least where we wouldn’t wake him up.

We ended up in the miraculously empty kitchen. I guided her to a chair, one hand on her elbow, and sat next to her with a very serious expression.

“I can’t even tell you how important it is for you to understand I did not just have sex with my neighbor,” I said.

“You did, you totally did,” Lilah said, her mouth curving in a way that was mildly disarming. “Oh my God, I can’t believe it. I was wondering where you went, and I asked someone and they said you were in Dave’s bedroom, and I thought, ‘No way did Randy agree to that,’ but you did. Alone. And now you look all flustered and rumpled. What else am I supposed to think?”

My face was hot. I let go of Lilah’s elbow and ran both hands through my hair, rearranging the fluffy blond tufts into something that hopefully resembled style. There wasn’t a mirror around, so I couldn’t be sure, but it felt okay when I smoothed my hand through my bangs.

“We didn’t do anything, okay? We hid in there because we stole someone’s booze. We were just drinking, and we were alone because—well, I don’t know, because he was paranoid someone would see he stole it, I guess.” _And then I creeped on him while he drank and got all hot and bothered_ , I thought. But no way in hell was I telling Lilah that. “Then I had some cake and we fell asleep. For God’s sake, the door was open, what kind of a slut do you think I am?”

“You were drinking?” she pressed, clinging to the worst possible detail.  Judging by the mischievous twinkle in her eye, she seemed inordinately pleased by this turn of events. I groaned and rubbed my forehead.

My brain was way too muddy for this. Actually, I was surprised I was even attempting this conversation while I still had to blink more than once to focus on anything. It was a story best saved for another day, so I pushed my chair back and stood.

“Forget it,” I told her. “It’s not important. I’m going home now.”

“No way, you have to tell me all the juicy details,” Lilah demanded. She leapt to her feet with a wobble and clutched my forearm, looking petulant. I decided right then and there that she was drunker than I was and therefore probably wouldn’t remember this in the morning. It was undoubtedly for the best.

I shook her off as well as I could. “I will, I promise, but later. Right now I’ve gotta go pass out. At home.”

She pouted and pointed drunkenly at me with two fingers as I grabbed my wine from the counter and edged toward the door.

“I’m holding you to that. Don’t think I won’t remember. If I don’t get it out of you, I’ll get it out of Dave.”

I rolled my eyes and waved her off. It took some swaying and a few too many tries with the lock, but I eventually got my door open. When I made it inside, my neon tetras were swimming in energetic blue laps around the aquarium, illuminated by the lamp I’d left on for them. They were impossible to tell apart, so I had a single name for the entire school of them: Gus. I opened the tank, dipped my fingers in to say goodnight, and switched off the light.

Things were good. Life was normal. I liked it that way, I decided, and put my wine in the fridge and stumbled off to bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Life got a whole lot less normal when I saw David in the hallway outside our apartments the next day. He was wearing a red sweater vest, but more importantly, he had gotten a miraculous haircut. It had bangs and layers and made him look hot as hell. I was so busy looking that I walked straight into the wall.

 _Oh God_ , I thought, clutching my forehead in pain, but not pained enough to stop staring unabashedly. _Why didn’t he look like that yesterday?_ I thought to myself sorrowfully. _I so totally would have held that stupid elevator._

The sound of me bonking my head on the wall must have been enough to catch David’s attention. He looked over at me, eyes crinkled with what I assumed was amusement as he locked his door. He even waved.

“Hey, Randy.”

“Oh, hi, David,” I said, lowering my hand from my throbbing forehead and feeling stupid. “How are you today?”

He grimaced. “Egh, David is what my mum calls me. Call me Dave.”

Something warm sparked in my chest before I could tell it not to. I nodded and felt myself smiling involuntarily.

“Okay, Dave. So how are you feeling? Are you hung over at all?”

“Nah.” Dave tugged at his bangs like he wasn’t used to them, pushing them slowly back and forth across his forehead. It was mesmerizing. I couldn’t look away.

“That’s good,” I said belatedly, too distracted to give a timely response. Something had lodged itself in the back of my brain. Something about his haircut. Hadn’t I told him to get one? And now here he had one, and a hot one at that. Either he respected my opinion as someone with fabulous hair or he specifically wanted to impress me. Surprisingly, I found myself hoping for the latter. I tried to reign myself in, failed, and added, “Your hair looks really good, by the way.”

“Ah, thanks,” Dave mumbled. His hand dropped away and tucked itself self-consciously into one of his pockets. He was swiftly turning red. He scuffed his shoe on the ugly gray carpet and looked to the side. “I should go. I’ve a bus to catch.”

I felt strangely disappointed. My forehead still ached, so I rubbed at the developing lump near my temple.

“Okay. I’ll see you later?” I said.

Dave just nodded, stepping neatly around me and down the hallway without a backward glance. I hoped Lilah hadn’t spoken to him about our supposed romp in his bedroom.  It would explain Dave’s awkwardness, but I was abruptly, intensely aware that I wanted to preserve any chance for something between us, no matter how small it was. So I just crossed my fingers and hoped he was only uneasy because we’d gotten drunk and taken a nap together.

Which might not have been that much better, now that I thought about it.

* * *

I entertained myself much later that night by drinking an entire bottle of peach wine for my next project. When I flipped on the TV, I found _Psycho_ on AMC and settled in to watch it. For the first time, I noticed Norman Bates was strangely attractive in a mentally unstable murderer kind of way. That wasn’t really a very healthy line of thought, because Norman Bates got me thinking about Dave. Thinking about Dave got me thinking about chocolate cake, and the next thing I knew I was getting up to buy a chocolate bar from the vending machine in the lobby.

Except then I got dizzy. I slid down the wall, holding my head, and lay down right there in the middle of the hallway. I wasn’t sure which door I was lying in front of until the door _opened_ and hit me in the side. I groaned and scooted away, looking up with surprise into Dave’s face.

“You’re pissed,” Dave said flatly, squatting down next to me with cricking knees.

“What? No, I’m not mad!” I tried to sit up and failed. “Why would you think I was mad at you?”

He grimaced. “Sorry, ah, I meant drunk. You’re drunk.”

“Oh, that.” I beamed at him, unrepentant. “Yes, I am. Quite.” I felt much more comfortable with him now that we’d slept in the same bed. Normally that would have had the opposite effect, but not with Dave it seemed. I waved to him and added, “Hi!”

Dave ignored my enthusiastic greeting and stared at me, obviously trying to determine my level of drunkenness.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

 _I_ wasn’t even sure of my level of drunkenness at that point, but I was pretty sure I was okay.

“Yes,” I said, distracted by the carpeted hallway, which, dirty and unappealing as it was, actually felt quite comfortable at the moment. I stretched out on it and tilted my head, trying to get Dave to look me in the eye. I attempted to pinpoint the light flecks in his irises that kept them from being entirely black.

He remained unaffected. “What are you doing out here, then?”

Oh, now that was a good question. I squinted a little, craning my neck back to look at the ceiling, and attempted to extract the reason from my wheeling mind. It was simple, I knew. Something obvious. Oh, that’s right, it was—

“I’m going downstairs to get some chocolate.”

Dave laughed quietly, almost under his breath. His eyebrows rose like he thought this was a very suspect motive for rolling around the hallway in the middle of the night, but he withheld comment. Instead, he just rocked back on his heels, his expression turning thoughtful.

“Do you want some bread with jam and cheese?” he asked.

I wrinkled my nose. “That involves significantly less chocolate, but you’re nice, so okay.”

“Great,” Dave said. He didn’t look like he thought it was great, though. In fact, he looked a little annoyed, like my rolling and chattering in the hallway had disturbed his peace and quiet. Which was probably true. Still, he grasped my hand with both of his and heaved me up, leading me inside his apartment with his hand on my back. I knew it was just to make sure I didn’t topple sideways into a wall, but it still felt natural, sort of gratifyingly private. I sighed happily and leaned back into it.

He took me into the kitchen, which looked spectacularly clean for a place that’d had a party in full swing only about twenty-four hours ago. There weren’t even any dishes in the sink; they had all been piled into brown cardboard boxes placed side-by-side on the counter. With his help, I got settled into one of his fold-out chairs. I couldn’t help giggling at the ridiculousness of being led around.

“You’ve only seen me at my worst moments,” I noted, sounding a lot more amused by this than I actually felt. “You must think I’m an idiot.”

“It happens,” Dave said. Always vague and non-committal. He left me to my own devices at the table and busied himself at the counter by putting two slices of bread in the toaster. 

I felt heavy and fuzzy, so I slumped in my chair and put my head down on the table. My bangs kept falling in my eyes. I brushed them away twice before I gave up and let them stay there, getting stuck in my eyelashes when I blinked.  My fingers traced the green patterned tablecloth without my mental consent, and then I frowned, eyebrows drawing together. I realized I didn’t know much about Dave beyond the fact that he was from New Zealand and put cinnamon in his chocolate cakes. And where he lived, obviously.

“So, um.” I sat up and tucked my hair behind my ears as I grappled for balance. “What do you do? I mean, what’s your job?”

“I’m an international student,” he said, opening the fridge. He stooped to pull out the jam and cream cheese. I choked.

“You’re a _student_?” I said. It came out rather louder and more frantic than I’d intended.

“Shh, yes,” he said. He straightened and frowned at me as he arranged the ingredients on the counter and set about looking through the utensil drawer.

“Oh wow.” My stomach flipped. I felt incredibly perverted and a little guilty for checking him out earlier. Blatantly, even. Since Dave was renting an apartment, I was decently sure he meant “college student” and not “high school student,” but still. I was twenty-four and Dave could have been as young as eighteen, and that would have been a considerable six-year difference. My hopes withered and died, leaving a sour taste in my mouth as I bemoaned, “I’m ancient compared to you.”

Dave finally found a knife and snorted.

“You don’t look ancient,” he said, opening a cabinet to pull down two plates.

“Um, thanks.” Unbidden, I felt my face growing warm. Despite the new knowledge that he might be barely legal, I hoped that meant he thought I was hot. I studied him closely as he took the toast out of the toaster, put one piece on each plate, and then slathered them with cream cheese and jam. He stood with some confidence, but not much. Shoulders hunched but legs spread. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said he looked twenty-ish. There had been booze at the party, but it was a toss-up as to whether he actually bought it.

Against my better judgment, I sincerely hoped he’d been the one to buy it, because that would have put him around at least twenty-one. Twenty-one and twenty-four wouldn’t have been so bad. That was totally doable, I thought—and oh God, was I _seriously considering this?_

“Clearly, I am insane,” I told myself.

“I noticed,” Dave said, setting the toast down in front of me. He sat down at the table in a folding chair identical to mine, black and cheaply made, and nudged a glass toward me. I was so out of it that I hadn’t even noticed when he’d gotten it for me. “Have some water, then.”

I stopped with my toast halfway to my mouth and narrowed my eyes at the spread in front of me. Toast. Water. These were familiar for some reason. I raised my eyes to Dave and frowned.

“This isn’t hangover food, is it?” I asked.

Dave merely looked sheepish and didn’t reply.

“Huh.” I looked down at my toast, contemplating the injustice of being force-fed hangover food against the weight of delicious toast. The toast won. “Whatever,” I said, shrugging, and popped half the piece in my mouth.

“I just don’t want you to vomit on my floor, mate,” Dave explained. He took his plate to the sink and then disappeared down the hallway. I picked at my toast, spreading crumbs on my plate while I listened to him fumbling around.

“I’m not going to puke,” I said to my toast before I finished the last bite, licking jam and cream cheese from my fingers. It wasn’t chocolate, but it somehow hit the spot.

“Sure, sure,” Dave said, even though I once again wasn’t talking to him. When I looked over, he was standing by the couch, which had miraculously turned into a bed in the time I’d become enamored with my toast. “Come here.”

Mumbling unintelligibly, I eased myself out of the chair and swayed directly into the table. I reached out to steady myself on the back of a chair and laughed.

“Wow, I think I stood up too fast.”

“You’re hopeless,” Dave said. He walked over, took me by the elbow, and cautiously guided me to the couch. With gentle hands, he pushed me onto the sheets and pillows he’d set out. Once he’d helped me under the comforter, he stood back and scratched his nose. “I’ll just, uh, get the bin, then.”

I pouted and snuggled into the couch. The blanket draped over me was soft and well-used, surprisingly comfortable, and smelled a bit like Dave’s bedroom. It was so soothing that I couldn’t resist burrowing my face in it.

“I’m not going to puke,” I insisted, closing my eyes.

“I’m sure,” Dave snorted, sounding very unconvinced, and left to get the “bin” anyway.

I was asleep before he got back.

* * *

The next day, after an embarrassing display of bed-head, I made a promise to Dave that I owed him one. Two, technically, if I counted the elevator incident. Afterward, I slipped back into my apartment with my figurative tail between my legs and made the executive decision to actually be productive for once. It probably had something to do with the vain hope that Dave would someday see the inside of my apartment and be impressed by its tidiness, but I ignored that. I focused on putting away dishes, vacuuming the floors, and taking a break to say hi to my fishies. Half of Gus floated in the plastic pink castle while the rest of him swam lazily through the fake plants. One in particular swam up to the glass and opened its mouth, over and over again, so I graciously added feeding time to my break.

At around noon, it was laundry time. I put all my clothes and unmentionables in a basket and dug some quarters out of the couch. I made a grudging note that I definitely needed to clean between the cushions later and then set off for the deep, creepy depths of the basement laundry room. It was dirty and coin-operated, but it beat the hell out of hauling all my belongings to the closest laundromat. 

As I passed by the mail boxes in the next room over from the laundry room, I heard an unknown voice say, “Dude, who is that slammin’ chick and why haven’t you banged her yet?”

I stopped and looked around, noting that there was no one else in sight. I tried to feel put out but quickly caught myself smirking.  Even though I had just been mistaken for a girl, I had been mistaken for a hot one. I was going to count that as a compliment.

To my surprise, a vaguely familiar voice replied, “Oh, that’s just Randy.”

My breath snagged in my throat. With mixed feelings, I held very still, the basket propped against my hip, and strained my ears to hear more. If Dave was talking about me, I wanted to know everything. Eavesdropping, schmeavesdropping—I was gathering information.

“Yeah, and?” his companion pressed.

“And he’s the bloke who lives across the hall from me,” Dave said.

Laughter. “Aw, man, he’s a dude? Dammit, I always make that mistake.”

“I know.” A mailbox opening and closing. The key turning.  Probably getting ready to leave.

That was my cue to get out of sight. Reluctantly, I moved into the laundry room and claimed a washer. I fed it quarters as quietly as possible, still trying to glean any patches of conversation I could. With my head bowed, I silently sorted my laundry and listened.

“…had an excuse,” the friend was saying. “That one was a tranny. Definitely would have been cool, post-op.”

Ugh. The friend was getting nicknamed “Douchebag.”

“Yeah, almost the real thing,” Dave said drily. I was relieved to hear he wasn’t much impressed by Douchebag’s, well, douchebaggery. The pair of them drifted down the hall toward the elevator, and I could hear Douchebag talking about signs and how I was totally into him—which, bless his politically incorrect little heart, I was—and Dave politely telling him to shut the hell up.

With no small amount of effort, I semi-successfully forced the conversation from my mind and arranged my clothes into piles. Normally I just dumped the whole basket in on cold-cold with non-bleach detergent, but I was feeling especially responsible today. I was sorting through my third load when I belatedly heard someone else enter the room.

“Hello,” Dave said as he seated himself on an unused machine, his palms curved against his knees. I dropped a pair of underwear on the floor in surprise. We both stared at it for a moment until I retrieved it, blushing, and stuffed it down to the bottom of a pile.

“Hi,” I said stupidly. Dave smiled in return, wide and full, and I noticed for maybe the first time that he had very nice teeth. They looked good against his dark lips.

“I was thinking,” he said, fiddling with his bangs again in that self-conscious way he was developing. “Do you want to come up and hang out or something?”

It was a close call, but I managed not to drop anything again. My mind was still in the gutter—or more specifically, thinking very intently about his mouth. I might have been reading into “hang out” more than I should have.

“Excuse me?” I said, thinking I’d misheard.

“Do you want to—” he started, and then hesitated, staring at me with suddenly wide eyes. He shook his head and looked away. “Um, sorry, never mind. We should probably pretend I didn’t just say that. You look busy. Dylan must have been wrong.”

“Dylan?” I prompted.

“My friend,” he said stiltedly.

Ah, Douchebag. I felt my mouth curving as the puzzle pieces slid into place.

“He wasn’t wrong,” I said.

Dave choked. “What?”

Taking in his bright eyes, dark, messy bangs, and flushed cheeks, I made a snap decision and said, “I overhead you. He wasn’t wrong.”

“Oh.” He sounded detached but everything else about him looked lit up from the inside. He licked his lips and twitched as though he was trying to suppress the excitement but couldn’t.

“So, in other words, yes. I’d like to hang out.” I unceremoniously swiped all my unsorted laundry back into the basket. “Just let me finish up here and I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?”

Looking somewhat disbelieving, Dave flashed me an adorably hesitant smile and said, “Okay.”

Once he’d cleared the corner, I heard him exchange a high-five with someone I presumed to be Dylan. I would have judged him if I hadn’t felt like high-fiving someone too.

 * * *

After I finished my laundry, I dragged it all upstairs and hastily dumped it on my bed. I’d sort it later. I fed Gus, fluffed up my hair, and went straight across the hall to knock on the door. Moments later, it swung open to reveal a very smiley but jumpy Dave.

“Hi,” he said. Any doubt I’d had that this was anything other than what I’d hoped it would be slipped away as I raked my eyes up and down his frame. He’d changed into tighter pants and a less wrinkly shirt and he smelled faintly of cologne. All signs of a date, or at least trying to get laid. My nervousness faded and then tripled—I was glad I wasn’t misreading him, but now the gravity of the situation was spread at my feet and I was suddenly self-conscious. So help me God. If I chickened out, I would kick my own ass.

“Hey,” I replied, pushing my hair behind my ears, and stepped inside. His apartment was still super-humanly clean, which, if I was following stereotypes, probably should have been my first clue that he liked men. That, and the V-necks and cardigans.

And the way he was looking at me.

Okay, so I was an idiot. Flushing, I ducked my head and went into the kitchen, hoping for a reprieve.

“Where do you keep your glasses?” I asked around my suddenly dry throat.

“In this box, here,” he said, stopping behind my back and pointing. I couldn’t see him, but I could feel his body heat radiating against my shoulder blades.

“I need a drink. You want one?”

“Probably a good idea,” he said.

I nodded. “I thought so.”

Two glasses. An inch of liquid in a bottle of something over forty proof in his fridge. We sat at his kitchen table and knocked it back, leaving my eyes watering and a fierce burn traveling from my throat to my gut. Not too much, because I didn’t want to do anything embarrassing like throw up on him while we were doing it, assuming we were going to do it. Just enough to take the edge off.

“So,” Dave said with the refined air of a man who felt so awkward he wanted to die.

“Hmm?” I dragged my gaze away from the remnants of booze still on the bottom of my glass and looked at him. It seemed like the alcohol was hitting him hard and fast; his pupils were dilated and his cheeks were red. It was a good look on him. He licked his lips, and that looked even better.

“You’re really attractive,” he said rather abruptly.

I laughed before I could help myself. I might have even spit a little, it was so sudden.

Dragging the back of my wrist over my chin, I bit my lip belatedly to hide my amusement and said out of the corner of my mouth, “You’re really blunt.”

He looked gloomy now. “Sorry.”

My fingers pressed into his knee.

“It’s not a bad thing,” I said. “If you weren’t blunt I don’t think you would have asked me to come up here.”

He smiled, but it quickly faded. Forced. He twiddled his thumbs in his lap.

“You look a lot more relaxed than I feel,” he said. “Do you do this a lot?”

His question knocked me flat. Figuratively, of course. I thought maybe it was the alcohol making my heart pound and my stomach drop, but I knew better.

“No,” I said, unable to sound anything other than insulted. I knew some men did this a lot. Despite the fact that I was hopefully about to bone my neighbor, I was not one of them.

“Sorry,” Dave blurted, looking at me with anxious eyes. They were brighter, lit from the inside with bundles of excess energy. Nerves. “That sounded terrible, didn’t it. I didn’t mean it like that. You just look experienced and you’re making me feel like an idiot.”

“Oh.” I picked up my glass, held it up to the kitchen light and tilted it, trying to get the last dredges out. I wondered how pathetic it would look if I licked the glass. Desperate, or sexy? Probably desperate.

“Say something.”

“I like you,” I said decisively, putting my glass down. He looked surprised. If I was honest, I was a little surprised too. Either I was feeling particularly bold or the alcohol was taking effect, because I went on. “I don’t know why, but I do. I’m sorry I didn’t hold the elevator for you. This would be a lot easier if I had.”

“Um,” said Dave, his face bright and flushed and happy, which I interpreted as “I like you too.”

I took his glass, slid it next to mine, and scooted my chair over until we were so close that I could feel his shuddery breaths as he exhaled. I traced his collarbone, savoring the sensation of his skin against my fingertips. We stayed like that for a moment, faces impossibly close but our lips not touching. My heart was a heavy bass beat in my chest, too fast and yet not fast enough.

Finally, Dave was the one who took the plunge. He hesitantly pressed a kiss to the corner of my mouth, testing, and that was all I needed. I took his face between my hands and kissed him full on, running my tongue along the inside of his cheek and tasting alcohol and _Dave_ , and I was glad I was sitting down because it made my knees weak.

I slid my eyes shut and broke away, resting my head on his shoulder.

“God,” I said, dropping my hands to his back, and leaned against him so hard and so suddenly that I almost knocked our chairs over. He held onto me, though—warm hands on my slim arms, holding me against him like I mattered—and then he kissed my neck.

My neck was my weak spot. I moaned softly, shivering, and he added teeth. I subtly adjusted my pants.

“Do you want to, um…” I trailed off in a gasp as he nipped the fluttering pulse by my throat. I swallowed and tried again. “Do you want to, you know.” I meant to say “go to your bedroom” or something to that effect, but he was being awfully distracting and I couldn’t figure out how to say it without sounding stupid.

Dave wasn’t stupid, though. He pulled away, his mouth wet and swollen and gorgeous, and nodded. He took my hand and led me into his room, shutting the door soundly behind us. I felt shy but reverent, and okay, maybe not actually that shy, because I pinned him against the red-and-blue double-sided comforter the moment he sat on the futon mattress and started kissing him again. I needed this before I died of embarrassment.

I had to get him naked before I could (further) consider dying of embarrassment, though. I let him flip me over and cover me with his weight, feeling growing heat between my legs spread all the way to my toes and the tips of my fingers. I mumbled incoherently against his mouth as my pants seemed to get smaller and smaller.

“What?” he asked breathlessly.

“Off,” I said. He looked confused and started to crawl off me, and I tugged at him desperately. “No, not you! Shirts.”

Having sex apparently reduced my mental capacity to that of a three-year-old’s. I had limited vocabulary, incomplete thoughts, and spoke only fragmented sentences. Mercifully, Dave knew what I meant, and our shirts came off. Dave gently lay down on me again and kissed my neck.

“Wait,” I panted, pushing at his chest. It was hot and heaving and lightly muscled beneath my hands and it made me almost unbearably hard. I couldn’t remember how to say “take off your pants,” so I whined pitifully and thrust my hips against him, tugging at our waistbands to emphasize my point.

Dave must have been having some cognitive issues too, because he just turned to kiss my face and said, “What?” like it wasn’t totally obvious what I wanted.

“Pants,” I managed to say in what I was reasonably sure was English.

He stopped for a moment, leaving me wriggling in a state that he either found terribly sexy or unspeakably repugnant. His eyes were wide and dilated, his mouth slack-jawed. I stared back at him, knowing I was sweaty and tousled and hoping like hell he wasn’t having second thoughts.

He wasn’t. In a moment like ecstasy he had both of us out of our pants and boxers. I thought it was going to be the best moment of my life until we were done fumbling with the lube and condoms and then he was actually inside of me, and _that_ was the best moment of my life. When I came, I knew exactly why the French called an orgasm _le petit mort_ , because it felt like dying and all those crazy religious fanatics were right: there was a heaven, and it was peaking with Dave on top of me.

In the solace of the afterglow, my verbal abilities finally seemed to return. I was spooned up behind him, my nose nestled near his ear with one leg thrown over him. But now that I could form coherent sentences again I had no idea what to say.

I cleared my throat and went for the obvious. “That was nice.”

Dave rolled over with a look of incredulity. “What?”

Had that been the wrong thing to say? I swallowed nervously and wrapped my leg back around him. “I said that was nice.”

His look of disbelief softened. He traced my cheek with his fingertips and looked awed instead. “Yeah?”

“Um, yeah,” I said in my best “you are an idiot” voice.

“Good.” He kissed the shell of my ear and sighed. “It’s been a while so I was worried it would be awful.”

“I can say with complete confidence that it was the exact opposite of awful,” I told him, pressing my cheek against his and feeling safe and sated. The moment stretched, slowly, enjoyable while it lasted but ultimately finite. I stayed there until I started feeling sweaty and uncomfortably hot, and then I had to roll away.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Extremely.” I reached up to turn on the ceiling fan and flopped back down, pulling only the sheet up to cover myself. “We should definitely do that again.”

I couldn’t see him, but I knew he was smiling.

“Deal,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up feeling considerably more naked than usual. I had a tendency to get cold in my sleep, so I usually wore pants and a shirt. But today I was definitely bare to the skin and pressed up against something solid. It took me a few moments of groggy blinking before the memories hit me like a tangible wave, and I nearly laughed to myself. Life had never been so awesome.

Quietly propping myself up on one elbow, I glanced down at Dave, who was still asleep next to me. His lips were parted and his small puffs of air raised goose bumps as he breathed across my arm. I carded my fingers through his soft, dark hair and smiled at him. The sheet was wrapped around his long legs and the comforter was pushed down to his feet; he was hogging all the blankets without even using them. It was a revelation of sorts to discover that I wasn’t even the slightest bit cold.

Maybe his A/C unit was broken, I thought. I wouldn’t be surprised, what with the shoddy maintenance in the building. But some part of me—a large part, if I was completely honest—wanted to believe that I was warm simply because I had a tall body in bed next to me. It had been long enough since the last time I’d woken up next to someone that I couldn’t remember if it was always like this.

Despite all my logic and better judgment, I hoped not. I wanted Dave to be different.

After lying in bed for a while longer, I eventually forced myself off the futon. I dressed in yesterday’s clothes and padded past more of Dave’s mysterious cardboard boxes on my way to the kitchen, wondering if his lease was expiring this month. Some students only signed leases for nine months while they were here for the school year.

I mulled this over as I poked around in his cabinets. They were a bit musty and the contact paper was peeling. He was probably moving to find an apartment building that was less crappy than our current one. I would have moved too if this place hadn’t been such a hard to find hole-in-the-wall. Living here made hiding easy.

As I pulled open more cabinet drawers, I admitted to myself that I’d been half-expecting to find his pantry stocked full of Vegemite or the New Zealand equivalent thereof. I was strangely disappointed that it wasn’t. It was just full of normal American fare: soup cans, noodles, oatmeal packets. Everything was instant, healthy, and in meager supply. My apartment was full of toaster pastries and chocolate-flavored cereal, which sounded a lot more appetizing at the moment. Not to mention my toothbrush was there and I didn’t want to breathe gross morning breath all over my new whatever-Dave-was.

Decision made. Quick pit stop at the apartment to eat and brush my teeth, and then hopefully to return non-creepily for cuddles. And, I thought, glancing at the clock, maybe some late evening sex. I’d been asleep for a while, it seemed. At least I hadn’t slept clear through to the next morning.

As soon as I stepped into the hallway, I knew something was wrong. The air felt tense and heavy, like a storm brewing. My door was ajar.

If I’d been smart, I would have gone back into Dave’s apartment and called the police. Or apartment security. Or at least woken Dave up and asked him to come with me. But I went in alone, reassuring myself that it was probably just some college student being an asshole, testing every door until they found an unlocked one and pushed it open. That still wasn’t good, but it was better than the alternative I was starting to fear.

It was even weirder inside. The uneven staccato of my heart was the only sound, but there was some unidentifiable aroma in the air, strong and tempting. Something with chicken. It was too strong to be coming from anywhere other than my kitchen, which was both strange and terrifying.

Probably a drunken college student, I amended my original hypothesis, even as my figurative hackles rose and the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A drunken college student who thought he was in his own apartment making himself a nice dinner. But as much as I hoped I was mistaken, I had already resigned myself to the reality of who was probably in my apartment. Hoping to prove myself wrong, I crept around the corner and peered into the kitchen.

I saw a pair of stylish designer boots and gasped.

The boots stirred. “Randy?” a voice asked.

I recognized that voice. Oh God, did I recognize that voice.

“Everly,” I said. The anger hit me like a physical blow, fierce and explosive, and I balled my hands into fists. I stomped into the kitchen where Everly, my ex-boyfriend and sometimes psycho stalker, had apparently taken it upon himself to break into my apartment and cook dinner. A very nice dinner, it seemed, but that didn’t excuse the fact that he’d broken in.

Everly had settled himself rather comfortably in a chair, one of _my_ chairs, and reclined with his arms hanging over the back and his legs crossed at the ankles. He looked as luxurious as always, his shiny, gold-red hair falling down to his shoulders in a sleek wave. His amber eyes stared at me, a smirk on his bow-shaped lips. His clothes looked just as expensive as his boots, supple and dark: a crisp button-up shirt and a black leather jacket, the shirt tucked into slim-fitting slacks.

Okay, so he looked good. Really good. But I still wanted to kill him. How dare he track me down just when I was starting to feel at home.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I demanded. I folded my arms and planted myself directly in front of him, the anger vibrating off me like an electric charge.

“Making you dinner, of course,” Everly replied with a gracious tilt of his head.

This was just too bizarre. I shook my head and closed my eyes, hoping he would be gone when I opened them again. He wasn’t.

“How the hell did you even get in here?”

“I picked the lock,” he said smugly.

My heart skipped an unpleasant beat. “What?”

Wordlessly, Everly reached into his jacket and pulled out a long, black pouch. He tossed it onto the kitchen table where it rolled open to reveal a lock picking kit. My jaw dropped.

“You’re insane,” I said. “I’m calling the police.”

Everly was on his feet before I could even blink, let alone get to the phone. He blocked the way, one hand planted against the wall. He crowded into my personal space, his broad chest and shoulders hiding everything else from view. I swallowed the grapefruit-sized lump in my throat and looked up into his eyes.

“Everly,” I said warningly.

“Don’t,” Everly said, placing his index finger over my lips. Lips that had been kissing Dave not a few hours ago. I turned away, but he pushed at me until my back hit the edge of the Formica counter. He tilted my chin up, forcing me to look at him—his amber gaze was wide and honest, his mouth soft and open. He was always so good at presenting the perfect front. It was too much.

I squeezed my eyes shut to block it out, to keep from remembering a time when I wanted him. He had me backed up against the counter and I was almost shaking with fear, my heart in my throat. Everly had never laid a hand on me. No, he was subtler than that. But a B&E still wasn’t an acceptable way to talk to me.

Putting a steadying grip on the counter, I took a deep breath and said with as much force as I could muster, “Get out.”

“Don’t be rude, Randy. Let me stay,” Everly pleaded in a voice that was somehow not pleading at all. More like commanding. His thumb caressed my lower lip, pulling it down and brushing his skin against my teeth.

I knew where this was going. I bit him before he could get any farther.

“Christ!” Everly hissed, jerking his hand away and shaking it out at his side. His eyes narrowed, searing into mine, refusing to back down.

“Get out,” I repeated. “I have a restraining order against you.”

“You forgot to renew it,” he said. “I like to stay informed about these things. If you’d only listen, you’d know that I’m sorry about the last time—”

“The last two times,” I corrected bravely, despite the fact that I felt like puking or fainting or pissing myself. I’d fallen for this ploy once before, the first time Everly had visited my apartment after we broke up, in a different city, in a different _state_. God, and I’d just been thinking to myself about how hard to find this piece-of-crap apartment was. “How did you find me?”

“I hired someone.”

I felt so sick. I shoved him hard enough to give me the space to squeeze past him, toward the phone. This was going downhill fast. I needed to get Everly out of here.

“I don’t want you back,” I said, proud that my voice sounded far steadier than the rest of me felt.

“But you will,” he purred.

My arm was already pulled back to punch him when I heard the front door open. I froze, and we stood there just looking at each other for a split second before I lowered my fist.

“This isn’t over,” I said and then went to see who else was breaking into my apartment today.

It was Dave, standing uncertainly by my door and not wearing a shirt. Just the jeans he’d had on earlier. I stopped so suddenly that Everly ran into my back, nearly pitching me to the floor, but I steadied myself with a hand on Everly’s arm. I felt Dave looking at me and immediately snatched my hand back.

“Um,” Dave said, leaning past us to look at the meal in the kitchen and then looking back at me with raised eyebrows. “I didn’t know you had hired help.”

I was hit by a shot of relief. I was impressed that Dave was making an effort to view the situation in a way that didn’t involve some very blatant and half-true assumptions about me and Everly.

I almost wanted to lie, to go along with it, but I forced myself to say, “I don’t.” I shoved Everly toward the door, hard, and added, “He was just leaving.”

“Actually,” Everly said smoothly, walking over to Dave and extending his hand with a dazzling smile. “I just got here. My name’s Everly.” He winked. “I’m Randy’s ex.”

“Oh.” Something in Dave’s expression cleared. His smirk was sharp as he shook Everly’s hand. “His ex, huh. Too bad for you, then.”

“I’m working on it,” Everly said, like I wasn’t standing right behind him trying to glare a hole into his head.

“Well, good luck, mate.” Dave looked past him and smiled affectionately at me. “You coming back over for some frozen waffles, Randy?”

Oh, frozen waffles. A+ choice. I hadn’t seen those, but I also hadn’t checked the freezer.

My lips twitched in an answering smile, and I nodded.

“Yeah, sure. Just came over to change and brush my teeth,” I said.

“Excuse me?” Everly said.

“You heard me,” I snapped, and then turned to Dave. “Give me a minute, okay?”

“Okay,” Dave said, shoving his hands into his pockets. It looked like he was going to wait for me.

“Great.” I glared at Everly as I passed him to go into my room, where I threw on the closest available clean clothes: a plain, solid-colored crewneck tee and tight jeans. My flip-flops were still in Dave’s apartment, so I stayed barefoot. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth as quickly as possible, wiped my face with a towel, and came back out.

Everly was standing in my doorway.

“You,” I said, pointing at him. “You’d better get the hell out.”

He pursed his lips. “I’m not letting you go anywhere with him.”

Knowing Dave was in the next room gave me the extra push I needed. I stalked forward, poked him in the chest, and said, “I don’t give a crap what you think. It’s none of your business anymore.”

 “Randy,” he said softly, curving a placating palm against my shoulder.

“Just don’t,” I growled and threw him off. “I’m serious. I don’t want to look at you right now.”

“Fine, we can talk about this later.” Everly said. His jaw set stubbornly, like he knew he’d lost this battle but hadn’t admitted to losing the war. And then his eyes changed and he leaned forward, way too close to my personal bubble, and grinned. “I’ll see you tonight,” he murmured and then kissed my cheek.

My first reflex was to punch him, so I did. It hurt me more than it hurt him, evidenced by the fact that I was cussing and shaking my fist out while he was blinking and holding one hand over the rapidly reddening spot on his cheek. It seemed like he’d been stunned into silence.

“No way am I letting you get anywhere near me,” I warned him in a low hiss, shoving him into the living room with my uninjured hand. Dave, catching my eye, opened the door and held it for me to wrestle Everly toward.

Somehow, Everly still managed to look suave and deadly even as I got him into the hallway. The harsh fluorescent lighting had no effect on his already flawless skin. He tossed his hair and looked me dead in the eye.

“We _are_ going to talk about this,” he insisted.

The threatening glint in his expression petrified me, striking me speechless. But luckily, I didn’t have to say anything.

“I don’t think he wants to,” Dave said, and then slammed the door in his face and locked him out.

How embarrassing, having someone else fight my battles for me. But even unmanly mortification couldn’t keep me from being grateful.

“You didn’t have to do that,” I said, tucking my non-sore hand into the crook of his elbow. I was still a little shaky, but mostly relieved. I could hear Everly stalking angrily down the hallway.

“Yeah, I did. Your ex seems like a total arse,” Dave said.

I laughed, loud and unexpected. When Everly’d had me cornered in my kitchen, I’d felt like I’d never laugh again. I squeezed his arm and smiled. If the bubble of liberation I was feeling was from hysteria, I didn’t care.

“He totally is,” I said, even though that didn’t even begin to cover all the things Everly was. “That’s why he’s my ex.”

* * *

“So, the way I figure it, I owe you about three dates,” Dave said when I came over the next day. We were going to a nearby coffee shop to meet Lilah for brunch, so we’d met up in front of his place and decided to walk there together. We had just cleared the ground floor and were headed toward the double glass doors in the lobby.

“Three, huh?” I asked with a smirk as we left the building and started walking. “Why three?”

“Well, you know.” He scratched at the stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning and shrugged. “That’s usually an acceptable number of dates before you, ah, you know. Have sex. And since we did it before we even had one, I figured I ought to make it up to you.”

When he said things like that, it made me feel kind of weightless inside. Like I had no stomach.

“Not that you have anything to make up for, but I usually don’t put out until the fourth date.”

He bumped my shoulder with his. “Three more after this, then.”

“Coffee with Lilah totally doesn’t count,” I said.

“You drive a hard bargain, Randy, um… I’m sorry, what’s your last name?”

“Gallagher,” I said, looping my arm through his and resting my head on his shoulder. It should have bothered me that we’d had sex before I’d even told him my last name, but it didn’t. Sometimes you just couldn’t help how or when you clicked with people.

“Right, right, I knew that. I’ve seen it on your mailbox. Mine’s Barr.”

I hadn’t known that, but I wasn’t going to say anything. I just leaned up, kissed him on the cheek, and kept my arm wound through his the whole way to the coffee shop. I broke away when he opened the door for me, though. We hadn’t told Lilah yet and I didn’t really want the gossip queen of the West Coast to know before she absolutely had to.

Not that it made any difference. Lilah had a nose for new romance like a freaking bloodhound. Plus there was that little incident of Dave’s party and our nap in his bedroom.

As soon as we sat down at the table, she gave a delighted gasp and said, “I knew it!” and clasped her hands together. I had no idea what she was talking about until I realized I’d automatically slid in next to Dave in the booth, couple-style.

“Shut up,” I said as I put my hand on Dave’s knee under the table. He responded by sliding his fingers up my thigh. I kept a carefully blank face and held his hand.

“Whatever, I knew the moment it happened. I caught you after you two boned at the party, remember?”

I felt rather than saw Dave’s heated stare on the side of my face. Thank you, Lilah.

“I told you, that never happened,” I said.

She waved away my truth and logic like she had so many times before.

“I’m sure it didn’t,” she drawled. “Except for the part where you’re a couple now.”

Next to me, Dave stiffened. I frowned.

“It’s a long story,” I said.

“Of course it is,” Lilah said and sipped her water. “I must say, I’m surprised. I didn’t think Dave would want to get involved this late in the game.”

Dave went from stiff to downright stony. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

Oh, but I would. I looked between the two of them, staring so hard that the little worry lines I pretended I didn’t have popped up between my eyebrows.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Dave said with a glare in Lilah’s direction. “Come on, Randy, you want a latte or a muffin or something?”

That man sure knew the way to my heart.

“Chocolate muffin,” I said, releasing his hand and scooting out of the booth so he could get up.

The moment Dave was out of earshot, Lilah leaned over the table, her eyes glimmering with the prospect of gossip.

“He hasn’t told you yet?” she asked.

“Told me what?”

“Ooooh,” she said, leaning back in her seat, and covered her mouth. Her long hair slipped over her shoulder, but for once she didn’t immediately primp and reposition it. She was too busy staring at me, her expression clearly conflicted. “I don’t know if I should tell you or not.”

So vague. How unhelpful.

“Is it important?” I asked.

Lilah laughed unexpectedly and then immediately looked guilty about it.

“Um, yeah, I’d say so.”

God help me, she was appealing to my inner gossip. I wanted to know so badly, especially if it was important, but I knew deep down that it would be better to let Dave tell me himself. With a great deal of restraint, I folded my hands in my lap and looked away from her gossip-bright eyes.

“If it’s that important, I trust him to tell me.”

Lilah appeared almost pitying.

“That’s very mature of you,” she said, a bit sadly.

That only made me want to know even more, but I firmly clamped my mouth shut and glared at the table until Dave returned. When he finally did after what seemed like ages, I was glad I hadn’t pried, because he’d not only brought me two muffins but some hot chocolate as well. Sometimes it was almost startling how sweet and thoughtful he was, especially after dating a wretch like Everly, but it was a pleasant sort of surprise. I accepted everything with a blush and a pleased little beam.

“You’re welcome,” he said before I could even thank him, and put his arm around me.

Content, I leaned into him and felt secure in my decision. Dave was a great guy. He’d definitely tell me when the time came.


	4. Chapter 4

It was about midnight when I heard knocking on my door, loud enough to rip me straight out of my dreams. The sound was desperate and constant, the kind made from a fist and not knuckles. I pushed aside my blankets and stumbled to the front door in a delirium, standing on my tiptoes to look through the peephole.

The face on the other side made me groan out loud. Too loud, because the knocking stopped and suddenly there was an amber eye looking through the peephole right back at me. Everly.

“Randy?” he said.

“Go away.” With the door between us, I was more angry than scared. His timing sucked. It was like every time I had a nice day with Dave, Everly had to retaliate by making some grand obnoxious gesture in return. I turned away, fully intending to call security.

“Can I please talk to you?” he asked, making me pause. There was something in his voice, something low and sad that had me grabbing my phone but not dialing it.

I leaned against the door and held my phone to my chest. I told myself the moment something went wrong I would call 911. The door was shut and locked, so it wasn’t like I was in any immediate danger.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Just to talk, I promise.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, right. I know you. You came here to confuse me and ruin my relationship.”

To my surprise, Everly actually laughed. “What relationship?”

I banged on the door with the hand that wasn’t holding my phone. Screw him. Acting like he didn’t know.

“Dave,” I growled. The phone creaked in my grip. “You met him, remember? That time when you broke into my house _._ ”

“You mean your friend with benefits,” Everly said. I could hear the smirk in his voice. “You’re fooling yourself. That’s not a real relationship.”

 _It is_ , I thought, but I couldn’t bring myself to say it because I didn’t know if it was true. I had no idea what I was doing with Dave and I was almost sick with the realization that I really wanted to be in a relationship with him, exclusive and official and all that crap. Sure, we’d been on a date and had sex, but that didn’t mean anything in the grand and terrifying scheme of commitment. As much as it pained me to admit it—

“You’re right,” I said. I pressed my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes, feeling abruptly ill.

“I’m glad you see it my way,” Everly murmured. “Now open the door.”

I froze with terror, my insecurities momentarily forgotten. “No.”

“Just let me in,” Everly said. The doorknob jiggled. I gasped aloud, springing away, and my heart rate spiked.

“No,” I said, voice wavering. I cleared my throat and tried for a more commanding tone. “Get out.”

“But I love you,” he said, oddly sincere.

For a second, I actually believed it. Then I forced myself to remember how this would play out: for a month, Everly would be a saint, being thoughtful and bringing me presents. Then he’d start to smother me, wanting too much of my time, and I would pull back for air. And then Everly would complain that I was too cold, too distant, and that would make me disengage even further, brushing him off to the point that he would seek out affection and attention elsewhere.

After all these years, Everly could still make me feel like it was my fault. And that was just so ridiculous and unfair that I didn’t even know what to do.

“I don’t love you anymore,” I said, surprising myself with the strength of my voice. “And I never will again,” I added, because I knew that Everly would bring up the possibility. I was having none of that crap tonight.

“This is ridiculous.” The doorknob stopped moving and I heard jingling instead. If he thought he could pick the damn lock again without me calling the cops—

“I’m calling 911,” I told him in my adrenaline-strengthened tone. I held the phone up to the door as I pressed the keys so he’d know I was serious.

The jingling stopped and Everly swore. “You’re overreacting.”

“I’m pressing send,” I warned. I wasn’t, because I would have rather finished this without the hassle of filing a police report, but he didn’t need to know that.

“Fine, fine. I’m leaving. For now.”

Holding my breath, I waited for the sound of defeated, retreating footsteps down the hallway and the ding of the elevator before I dared to look through the peephole again.

Nobody. Just an empty hallway. And across the way, there was Dave’s apartment door, warped and fisheyed from the view through the peephole.

I was shaken—maybe too shaken, or just not shaken enough. My apartment was silent except for the gurgle of bubbles and the hum of the filter from Gus’s fish tank. I stood there, staring at the carnival-fun-mirror version of Dave’s door, and thought about how all I wanted to do was talk to him and affirm that we were more than friends with benefits.

To my credit, I tried to quell the urge. A quick glance at the clock told me that it was way too late to go traipsing over to his place and ask for reassurance. But the longer I stood there, the less confident I became. Before I knew it I had my keys in my hand, standing outside my apartment as I locked it, and then I was knocking at Dave’s.

Seconds ticked by. Minutes. I knocked again and soon after I heard slow, slumping steps like a zombie’s, followed by Dave opening the door. He stood there, shirtless and rubbing his eyes, and yawned.

“Randy?” he croaked, his voice rusty from sleep, and squinted at me. “Are you pissed again?”

I let out a breathless bark of laughter. “No, I’m not drunk, but I am mad. I’m just—Everly came by. It was stupid. I shouldn’t have talked to him, but I did and now I’m upset. Can I come in?”

At the word “Everly,” Dave’s shoulders had tensed and his entire posture had drawn up into rigidness, but he relaxed when I asked to come in.

“Yeah, of course,” he said and then seemed to curl back into his previous state of just-woken-up sleepiness. He turned, stumbling blindly to his bedroom, and left the front door open behind him.

I stepped inside, shut and locked the door, and then followed Dave to his bedroom. He was already flopped facedown on top of the covers, face smashed into the pillow and one leg hanging off the side of the futon. He looked absolutely adorable and I had to smile. I climbed in next to him, nestled down against his side with my nose brushing his hair, and sighed happily when he squirmed and put an arm around my waist.

“Mmph,” he said, turning his head so his breath hit my neck.

“How tired are you?” I asked, hoping he didn’t take it the wrong way. Normally when I would ask something like that, I would mean it in an, “Are you too tired to have sex?” kind of way. Right now I meant it in a clingy, “Can we talk about our relationship?” kind of way.

“Tired,” Dave replied vaguely, opening one eye to peer at me.

“Okay,” I said, swallowing down my disappointment. I kissed the top of his head and made myself push away all the thoughts churning around in a sick mess inside my head. I’d talk to Dave about it in the morning, hopefully. Or maybe this was just a passing concern and it wouldn’t even matter in twelve hours—and then it would be a good thing Dave was too tired and was falling asleep against my neck.

“’Night, Randy.”

“Goodnight,” I said, inhaling the smell of Dave’s shampoo, and closed my eyes.

* * *

In the morning, I woke up and was disappointed to find the feeling was still there. It flip-flopped around in my stomach when I rolled over and saw Dave sleeping on his side, facing away from me. I curled up behind him, arms tucked against his back, and hooked one leg over him because I was feeling needy. Dave must have slept like a rock, because he didn’t wake up or even seem to register the movement—just slumbered on peacefully and breathed a little too loudly.

Eventually I had to get up to pee. I washed my hands, splashed water on my face, and brushed my teeth with my index finger. When I headed back to bed, Dave was sitting up, blinking slowly at the wall and rubbing his cheek.

“Morning,” he said with a grin when he saw me, holding out his arms.

A little thrill sprang in my chest, sort of like an electric shock, and I couldn’t keep the goofy grin off my face as I settled back down on the futon with Dave, side by side. I kissed the corner of his mouth and ran my hands over his shoulders.

“Thanks for letting me in last night.”

“No problem,” he said dismissively. If he remembered why I came over, he didn’t want to talk about it. He just squeezed my waist and kissed my cheek.

I felt bad, knowing that I was going to ruin this cuddly morning moment by bringing up our relationship. I would have withheld further, but there was a numb sensation gnawing away at my stomach lining. I was already proud enough of myself for not keeping Dave awake last night to spill my guts.

Hiding my face in the comforter, I frowned where he couldn’t see it and said, “Can I ask you something girly and awkward?”

“Uh,” Dave said, which I took to mean “I’d rather you didn’t.”

Unfortunately for Dave, it was a rhetorical question and I was going to ask anyway.

“Are you seeing anyone else?” I asked.

“What do you mean, seeing?”

“Sleeping with,” I said. “Going on dates with.”

“Uh, well, here’s the thing….”

Oh God, Everly was right. “Don’t. Just forget I asked that, okay? Whatever we’re doing is fine. You don’t have to say anything.”

“It’s not like that.” Clearly bracing himself, he took a deep breath, held it in, and then released it slowly. “It’s just that I have to go back to New Zealand in a week.”

The way I felt, he might as well have just punched me. I stared at him and tried to find the words to express the hurt and shock vying for my attention.

“In a—in a _week_?”

He shrank away from me. I must have sounded pretty loud and hurt for him to react like that, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Finals were last week,” he explained meekly. “That party was an end-of-semester thing. I have thirty days to leave the states after the last day of class and I already bought my ticket last month. Didn’t you notice all my boxes?”

Crap. Yes. I’d just thought…. Oh God, I felt so stupid.

Dave leaned forward earnestly. “Look, Randy, it’s not that I don’t want to. I really like you. You get that, yeah?”

Numbly, I stared at the wall and remained silent.

 “I’m sorry. Say something,” he urged.

I licked my dry lips and forced myself to breathe. “What about after you leave?”

“When I’m in New Zealand?”

“Yes,” I said. My heart thumped. Why was I trying so hard for someone I’d ignored for an entire year? “I mean, there’s e-mail, right? And Skype.”

“Randy,” he said, shifting to sit up and give me an uncomfortably intense stare. “Do you think that’s a good idea?”

I deflated.

“No,” I admitted miserably. “It would be hard and probably end badly.”

Realism, Randy. It was a kick in the ass.

Dave slipped his arm around me and said, “I’m sorry. I bought my ticket before we’d even spoken. It’s nonrefundable. And I have to be out of the country within twenty-five days, anyway.”

“I see.” Numbness split me like a wishbone. I felt wooden, unable to move, and so I sat eerily still on his futon and waited for the empty, twisting sensation of regret to leave my gut. The disappointment from this morning throbbed and echoed. I’d wanted to come out of this conversation a couple, but now here I was, embarrassed and wrong. And worst of all, Everly had been right.

“We can still have fun until I leave, right?” Dave coaxed, rubbing my arm.

I twitched, turning to him.

“Fun?” I echoed. I’d been ready to ask where we were going with our “relationship,” and he thought we were just having fun? God, could he rub Everly’s words in my face any harder? Friends with benefits indeed. And here I’d been thinking we had a connection.

Some of my rage and incredulity must have shown on my face, because Dave started backpedaling rapidly.

“Fun like, you know, uh,” he stammered releasing me. He sat up and scooted to the safety of the edge of the futon. “I mean, we enjoy each other’s company, yeah? And I like you, so why shouldn’t we keep seeing each other until I leave?”

When he put it that way, it made me seem like the kind of clingy boyfriend I usually hated. It made sense, but the sluggish, painful thumping of my heart told me it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough as long as there physical distance between us. And that was when it hit me that I was already in too deep. The hesitant, nascent feelings I had and the words that went along with them had already taken root. I was well and truly screwed, so I supposed the only logical thing to do was enjoy it while it lasted.

All my anger deflated in one long sigh. I followed Dave to the corner of the mattress and sank down next to him, pressing my forehead into his shoulder.

“Okay,” I said, soft and scared.

Dave stared down at me in confusion, open-mouthed, almost like he thought he’d misheard.

“What?”

“Okay,” I repeated, burrowing under his arm. His touch stirred something electric within me and I closed my eyes and soaked it up while I still could. As he wrapped his arms around me, I remembered the smell of his shampoo from last night, the toast with jam and cheese he made me when I staggered drunk through his door, the heady taste of our first kiss. They all seemed like ages ago even though we’d known each other such a short time. I hoped that these memories would still comfort me after he left.

* * *

We made it to three official dates before the week was up, but they were all tinged with the cloudy depression that seemed to follow me wherever I went. It wasn’t Dave’s fault, so I was more sad than angry. If Dave minded, he didn’t let it show, because he still agreed to let me take him to the airport on Sunday.

The drive to the terminal felt abnormally long and quiet. It was predawn early with just enough bite in the air that I wished I’d worn a jacket. My fingers were clenched in vise-like grips on the steering wheel and my jaw was clenched even harder. I didn’t look at Dave even though he spent most of the ride trying to catch my gaze.

I wanted to look angry, to give the impression that I hated him for doing this, but it was hard to pass for angry when my eyes were suspiciously watery and I kept blinking way too hard. Strangling the wheel helped me fend off the urge to do something phenomenally stupid like ask him to stay. At one point, Dave put his hand on my knee and I almost gave in, hoping it was a silent apology or maybe a confession, but he pulled away after maybe only five minutes.

When we got to the airport, I insisted on walking in with him. I bypassed the passenger drop-off area and parked in the long-term lot, silently popping the trunk and pausing to swipe underneath my eyes before I got out. Dave grabbed his suitcase and I took his duffel, shouldering it before he could tell me otherwise. Luckily he’d mailed most of his belongings ahead of time or we would have been making trips back and forth forever.

The silence stretched uneasily between us as we walked. I slid my hand into Dave’s, the duffel bag bumping between us where it hung suspended from my shoulder. The longer we touched, the more heat spread in my chest. I was going to miss this.

I comforted myself with the knowledge that I was the one holding his hand in line to check his bags, not Dylan or Lilah. The last person with him was the person he’d known the least amount of time in America. That had to count for something, right?

The line moved. He dropped my hand and I felt cold. Stiffening, I shoved my hands in my pockets and was suitably amazed when he curled his arm around my shoulder instead.

“Thanks,” I said, leaning into him. It seemed like an appropriate first word to say. Despite the fact that I was bitter as hell that he was leaving, I really was thankful.

It was hard to think of this as our last few minutes together. I leaned in further, burrowing my nose against his neck, and heaved a deep sigh. Wetness seeped into his shirt collar and I was unsurprised to find that I was crying.

“Cheer up,” Dave said, like that was going to help. The line moved but I didn’t have the strength to budge from the moment I was trying to build for us. He nudged me with his knee. “Come on, then. It’s our turn.”

Slowly, I lifted my head from his neck and nodded, my eyes shiny but my cheeks dry. Dave ruffled my hair and took his bag from my shoulder—he checked the suitcase but kept the duffel as his carry-on. I should have felt lighter but I instead I felt much heavier.

We headed for the security line. I think he expected me to split off before we got there, but I stayed, resting my head on Dave’s shoulder with my arm around his waist. He wordlessly took off his shoes and waited to go through the metal detector.

About halfway through the line, I just couldn’t contain myself anymore. I wanted to talk about it.

I steeled myself, jutted out my chin, and asked, “Can I visit?”

“Sure you can,” Dave said easily, kissing the top of my head. Somehow, I didn’t think he got the message that I meant a romantic visit.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I said all in a rush. Embarrassingly, my voice pinched on the last two words and I could see Dave was uneasy.

He shuffled down the line and didn’t look at me.

“I’ll miss you too.”

That was it. No eye contact. The tears finally started rolling down my cheeks unabashedly and everyone around us turned to stare. Dave’s entire flight was probably here in line with us and he was going to have to spend a thirteen-hour trip with a group of people who’d just watched him break a man’s heart.

Dave dropped his duffel and put his hands on my shoulders.

“Hey, come on,” he cajoled.

I was crying too hard. I tried to tell him I was fine but it came out garbled.

“Randy,” he said in a sigh and pulled me into a full-body hug. The line was moving but we remained static, gaining irritated looks for wasting space. But I didn’t care, because I was folded up safely against him, hands fisted in his white tee with my face pressed against his collarbone. I felt warm again even though I was still achingly sad.

“I wish you didn’t have to go,” I whispered.

“Um.” He sounded guilty. His fingers found back of my head and played with the tips of my hair. “Sorry?”

I knew I was just making things worse, but when the words surfaced in my mind, I knew I had to say them: _I love you_. I shifted, pulling away to look up at him with tousled hair, pink cheeks and wet eyes, and I felt him stiffen. He must have known I was going to say it too.

“Don’t,” he told me before I could open my mouth.

I flinched, eyes darkening, and looked away. My hands fell away from his shirt and hung limply at my sides as I angled myself away, retreating into a hunch-shouldered “please don’t hurt me” stance.

My voice only shook a little when I asked, “Why?”

When I glanced at Dave, he looked regretful, his hand outstretched toward me.

“Because,” he said, sounding anguished, and touched my face. “If you say it now, I don’t know how I’m going to get on that plane.”

As if I needed any more reason to say it.

“I love you,” I blurted before I could give it any more thought, blushing as I belatedly noticed the crowd we’d gathered. People had stopped clearing their throats or glaring at us to move and had simply stopped to watch the drama unfold. As though they too knew that it was crazy to confess love so soon to a man who was clearly leaving.

“I just told you not to do that,” he said, scratching the side of his neck and looking flustered.

My heart sank and my eyes stung. Frantically, I dropped my gaze to the floor, to his shoe, to his bag, trying to appear unaffected, but it was too late. I looked crumply and miserable and I knew it. Dave knew it too, because he took that opportunity to pull me out of line and make for the bathrooms before I started sobbing in earnest.

Dave checked all the stalls and urinals and then locked the door. With a gentleness that didn’t match his dismissal, he lifted me, sat me on the counter, and brushed at my cheeks with a damp paper towel. I sniffled and pretended like none of this was happening.

“I’m not going to give you a farewell blow job in an airport bathroom,” I said after a few minutes of silence, a pale attempt at humor to lighten the situation.

“I know.” Dave tipped my face up and wiped under my eyes with the scratchy paper towel. Letting out a shuddery breath, I allowed my eyes to flutter shut and flinched as he wiped my eyelids too. He set the paper towel down and hesitated before adding, “I’m sorry.”

That was just adding insult to injury. I wanted to yell at him and tell him that if he was sorry, he’d be doing something about it, but instead I just drew my knees up to my chin. I could feel my lower lip quivering and my eyes stinging again. As hard as I tried to be a man about this, it didn’t change the fact that he was breaking my damn heart.

When Dave couldn’t endure my silence any longer, he picked up the duffel I hadn’t seen him put down and slipped it over his shoulder. A long sigh ruffled my bangs and prompted me to open my eyes, focusing slowly on where Dave stood in front of me. He was looking at his watch, soulful and remorseful.

“I have to get through security, Randy.”

I nodded numbly, feeling like I was sitting on the edge of his futon being told he was leaving all over again. Tenderly, he touched my hair and offered me a wobbly smile.

“I’ll call,” he said. “Remember to download Skype.”

Like that could change the fact that there was an ocean of water and hurt feelings between us.


	5. Chapter 5

At home, I found myself a quarter of the way through a bottle of cheap fruity wine that I adamantly told myself was a project and not a crutch. Dave didn’t call and I didn’t download Skype. Because Dave was on a plane and literally had no way of contacting me without absolutely stellar cellular service and potentially interfering with some very delicate airplane equipment. It was hard to lie there on my couch and do nothing, knowing that I had to wait thirteen hours before we could finish the conversation I’d stupidly begun.

When a knock came a little past six, I was actually foolish enough to hope it was him. That he’d seen the unsaid message in my eyes and come back. I slammed the bottle on the table, finger-combed my bangs and pinched my cheeks, and leapt for the door. Stupidly, I didn’t even check the peephole before I opened it.

It was Everly. With flowers. Standing with his hair pulled back into a ponytail, looking bright yet apologetic. When he saw me, he stuck his foot in the door and held out the bouquet.

“I heard your friend left town.”

I only took the flowers so they wouldn’t hit me in the face. They were pink and white, elegant and trumpet-shaped, and I thought they were lilies of some type. My first instinct was to throw them down as some sort of dramatic rejection, but it wasn’t the flowers’ fault, so I glared at Everly and went to put them in water.

I should have called the authorities. Everly took it upon himself to drape himself across my couch and pick up my blackberry merlot. One eyebrow arched, he sniffed it and gave me a disapproving glance. “You know, I was hoping this was just sparkling grape juice, but now I see how serious the situation is.”

Since I didn’t have a vase, I put the flowers in a pitcher of water, which had the same effect as putting a Michelangelo fresco in a five-dollar Walmart frame. I turned back to him, too numb to muster the appropriate fear or outrage, but I knew I had to say something.

“This isn’t something you can belittle and then expect to get away with,” I said, walking back to the living room to snatch up the wine and clutch it to my chest.

He smirked. “What, Arbor Mist? That’s a little unrealistic.”

I almost dumped it on his head, but I refrained.

“Don’t be an asshole,” I said. With exaggerated care, I put the bottle down on the coffee table, out of his reach, and then swept my hair behind my ears. If I composed myself, I was sure I could handle this. Numbness went a long way toward looking poised. I smoothed down my shirt and continued, “You know I’m upset because Dave is gone, and you’re only here to try to take advantage of me while I’m vulnerable.”

Unexpectedly, Everly had the audacity to look offended. He rose to his feet and took a step toward me, but I took two steps back, and he stood there with his arms helplessly outstretched. His face actually looked pained.

“I came here because I care about you and I know you’re hurting,” he said.

I was not going to fall for this, I was not going to fall for this, I was not going to fall for this. I told myself to kick him out, throw away the flowers, and get rip-roaring drunk as soon as possible, no matter what polite societal standards said. Now that I was an adult, I didn’t need to buy into his stupid games anymore.

But unfortunately, even as an adult, I was still human, not to mention pitifully vulnerable. So when Everly took another step toward me and looked me in the eyes and asked if I wanted to talk about it, I broke. Maybe because he seemed so genuine. He wasn’t even being demanding like usual. Just acting like the Everly I’d first met, which was perhaps the most dangerous thing about it.

When I told him everything, he didn’t have to say anything for me to know I was an idiot to think some impromptu romance with my neighbor was really going to work out.

* * *

There was no decision to try again with Everly, but there was a truce. He stayed over, took my supposed wind chime-to-be away from me, and just listened. He fed my fish for me when I got too worked up to do anything except go to bed early and cry. I was actually in my pajamas, with sleepy, mussed bedhead, supervising Gus’s feeding when another unexpected knock came at my door two days later. Thinking it was Lilah, I studiously ignored it and tapped at the tank while the fish zipped around catching flakes of food.

There was another knock. Everly sighed and flipped down the tank lid.

“Are you going to answer that?” he asked.

“Probably not.”

He tutted and spun me around, giving me a push toward the door.

“Go on, don’t be difficult,” he said. “You answer the door and I’ll start on breakfast.”

Breakfast. He’d probably make something extravagant to impress me. I missed toast and frozen waffles.

Resignedly, I dragged myself to the door and opened it, squinting and shielding my eyes from the light of the hallway.

“Go away, Lilah.”

“Randy,” a familiar voice said, sending a burst of surprise and joy straight to my gut. Dave dropped his duffel on the floor and pulled me into my arms.

The world reeled. I drew back to do a double take, scouring his face for the brown eyes and wide mouth I was used to, and belatedly remembered to breathe. My trembling hand touched his face and I thought I was going to cry again like at the airport.

“It’s been two days,” I said, unable to think of anything else.

He smiled nervously and said, “Well, I needed a day to have a lie in and be miserable and realize I never should have left in the first place. Mum loaned me the money to come back and grovel.”

“Oh,” I said stupidly. Something unraveled inside me, light and relieved. Tingly, almost.  I sagged forward against him and returned his unlikely grin, clutching his arms to keep him there as long as possible.

And then stupid Everly called out, “Randy?” from the kitchen, and Dave’s smile fell.

“Is that who I think it is?” Dave asked.

“Depends on who you think it is,” I said, weakly disengaging. I patted my hair down and fought back a disgraced flush.

“I think it’s your arsehole ex,” he said darkly. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I shut the door and stepped into the hall before Everly could show his ugly face and ruin things even more.

“You’re not wrong, but it’s not what you think.” Assuming he thought it was a completely innocent visit that had nothing to do with absolute loneliness and desperation. I looked at Dave and tried to smile again, conveying my regret with the twitch in my lips and the lingering redness around my eyes. “Give me ten minutes and I’ll have him gone. Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

Dave crossed his arms and huffed. “Yeah, okay.”

“Great,” I said. After a moment’s hesitation, I pushed up onto the balls of my feet and kissed him solidly on the mouth and then practically ran back inside with the plan to toss Everly down the fire escape.

“Everly,” I hissed, shutting the door behind me and creeping into the kitchen. He’d gotten a skillet out and was breaking eggs into a bowl. I would have felt guilty if panic wasn’t currently pushing me to get him out of my house as quickly as possible. “You have to leave.”

“I assume it’s Lilah, then,” he said, seeming unperturbed, and began whisking the eggs with a fork. “I got the feeling she didn’t like me much. Can’t you ask her to come back later?”

 _Didn’t like you with good reason_ , I thought. It was like an out-of-body experience, watching myself watch this man I no longer wanted stand in my kitchen while the man I did want stood outside my door. Why had I been desperate enough to let Everly in? I could have kicked myself, but I would have rather kicked Everly’s ass out the window.

“Please do this for me just this once,” I begged, swallowing down my pride and putting my hand on his arm.

Everly sighed like I was annoying him. “Let me finish this and tidy up a bit and then we’ll see.”

And this was the kind of thing that had always been wrong with him. It made my chest tighten, and I pursed my lips and took the fork and the bowl of drippy yellow eggs away from him.

“If you don’t mind, I’m not hungry, and I’d really like to talk to Lilah alone right now.”

Everly studied me for a moment, his discerning gaze sweeping back across my face for what seemed like forever until he finally seemed to find something that satisfied him.

He nodded, squeezed my wrist, and said, “I understand.” And then, to my horror, he started walking to the front door.

I bolted after him.

“No! Not that way. Take the, um—can’t you go out the fire escape? To avoid, you know, Lilah?”

“Absolutely not,” he said loftily, rolling down his sleeves and checking his back pocket for his wallet. He reached for me, presumably to hug or kiss me goodbye, but I ducked away. He rolled his eyes and put his hand on the door knob. “All right, then, I’ll just see you tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t.” I slammed my hand on the door and glared at him, gritting my teeth. “Leave out the fire escape. You’re pissing me off.”

Snorting, he said, “We’ll see,” and pulled open the door despite my weight on it.

In a panic, I tried to squeeze past him, to put myself between Dave and Everly and explain before things devolved into fisticuffs. But when I got into the hallway, it was empty. Dave and his duffel were gone, and the only sounds were Everly’s languorous footsteps as he walked away.

* * *

I knew Dave’s mobile number was probably disconnected, but I called it twice anyway. It rang hollowly both times until it informed me that the number I had dialed had been disconnected. I sat with the phone between my knees, gnawing my lip, until I got so angry at myself and the situation that I called the first person I could think of to blame.

“This is your fault,” I accused sullenly when Lilah answered the phone, throwing myself down on the couch with my heart climbing steadily up my throat. It was beating so hard that I thought I was going to pass out. I was just barely hanging on, convincing myself that this was fixable, or preferably not happening at all.

“What is?” she asked in a combination of confusion and amusement.

“Everything.” I picked at a loose thread in the cushion, feeling intensely sorry for myself. “If you hadn’t invited me to that party, I could have gone on thinking Dave was a serial killer until he moved, and then I wouldn’t be sitting here with my heart broken because I’m an idiot.”

“Oh honey,” she said in a sympathetic rush. “I’m sorry. I knew I should have told you he was leaving.”

“That’s not it,” I said, rolling onto my back to glare at the ceiling. The popcorn texture cast millions of tiny shadows that I desperately, angstily related to in my self-pity. “He came back, but I—” I paused, chewing my lip again. I couldn’t tell her about Everly. “I, uh, had company, so he kind of bailed and now I can’t find him.”

Lilah fell uncharacteristically quiet for a moment before she said, “You couldn’t have known he would come back, so even though I think that was super slutty of you, I can’t blame you. Did you check Dylan’s?”

I felt a stab of hope. I’d almost forgotten about Douchebag.

“No, I don’t have his number. Do you think he’d go there?”

A snort. “Duh. They’re like best friends.” She rattled off the number while I frantically looked around for a pen and paper. She had to repeat it twice, but I got it written down.

“You’re the best,” I managed to tell her through the emotion in my voice.

“I know I am. And I’ll be there in about ten minutes to pick you up.”

My chest fluttered. “To take me to Dylan’s to see Dave?”

“No, stupid. To take you to the police station to renew your restraining order, since I know you and I’d bet anything it was Everly you had over.”

An embarrassed blush crept up the back of my neck. I didn’t have any excuses for that.

I cleared my throat and said, “Yeah, I know, that was probably a bad decision. He just seemed so nice and genuine—”

“And then turned into a jerk as soon as he stopped getting what he wanted, right?” she interrupted me. “Yeah, I know how that goes. Hang up and call Dylan. I’ll see you in ten.”

It took five of those ten minutes for me to get up the nerve to call Dylan’s phone, and when Dylan finally answered on the last possible ring and I introduced myself, he immediately passed it over to Dave.

“Hullo?” Dave said, sounding a bit confused. Dylan hadn’t warned him who was on the line. But confused or not, the second his voice hit my ear, relief fell over me in a tidal wave and I couldn’t stop smiling.

“It’s me. Uh, Randy, I mean—no, don’t hang up!” I pleaded when I heard the muffled sound of the phone being pulled away and cussed at. I held onto the happiness that he was just at Dylan’s, not on another plane, and pushed onward. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry about earlier. If I’d known you were coming back, I never would have let him anywhere near me.”

“Look,” he said, too loudly and emphatically to be entirely sober. He must have been really upset to be tipsy already. “I don’t blame you. I get it. I left and he’s extremely good-looking and he fancies your pants off. Literally. It’s okay, stuff happens.”

“But it’s not okay,” I said, feeling worse by the second. I was afraid I was going to throw up. “I would rather have you. I always would’ve rather had you. It was so stupid to let Everly in but I swear nothing happened. We just talked.”

“I’m sure,” he drawled.

“Dammit, Dave,” I snapped. “Can’t you stop acting like you didn’t come back from New Zealand for me and just shut up and realize that I’m apologizing and asking to see you?”

He didn’t reply. If I hadn’t been able to hear his soft breathing on the other end, I would have thought he hung up. Dylan was saying something incoherent but most likely douchebaggy in the background.

“Dave?” I asked.

“What?” he said shortly.

Cringing, I hugged myself and hoped for the best and said, “Can I see you?”

“I don’t know. It took you two days to get a guy in your house. That’s not exactly a good sign.”

I was already near tears, bouncing back and forth between self-pity and the severe desire to see him again.

“Please,” I begged.

“I’ll think about it,” he said and hung up.

* * *

When Lilah came over, she found me in a fetal position on the couch with the phone clasped against me. I was sure it looked very dramatic and pathetic, but she remained unimpressed. Taking me by both wrists, she dragged me off the couch and into my bedroom and ordered me to get dressed.

“Put on something a judge would like and tell me where you keep the copies of your old forms.”

Dazedly, I pushed through my closet and picked out a sweater that was too hot for the current weather but looked good on me.

“What do you need copies for?” I asked.

“To give to the clerk,” she said impatiently. “I Googled how to renew a restraining order before I came over here.”

“I don’t know,” I said. I took off my pajama shirt, tossed it the corner, and slowly pulled the sweater on over my head. “Probably in the safety deposit box. Top drawer of the dresser.”

“Great.” She hesitated, watching me stumble as I tripped out of my pants, and heaved a soft sigh. “Randy, you know it’s gonna be okay, right?”

Stilling, I stood with one leg in my dress pants and stared dully at the carpet.

“Not really,” I said in a predictably anguished voice. “He doesn’t want to see me.”

“You don’t think a restraining order against Everly will change his mind?”

My head whipped around, eyes wide as I gawked at her. That actually hadn’t occurred to me yet.

“Lilah, you’re a genius.”

She just smirked, rooting around in my sock drawer. “I know, honey.”

When she found the safety deposit box, she tsked at its unlocked state, shuffled past my birth certificate and my passport, and pulled out my current copy of DV-130, _Restraining Order After Hearing._ She folded it in half and creased it with her nail, looking smug.

“You ready?” she asked.

I looked down at my feet and decided I could forego the time it would take to find dress socks and just wear flip flops instead. Hell yes I was ready.

* * *

The visit to the police department was long and tedious. I had to fill out two forms, have an emotional chat with a judge, and make lots of copies of lots of paperwork. I tried to convince Lilah to stop by Dylan’s on the way home, but she insisted that if he’d already been drinking then he was probably in bad shape.

She was right, but probably not for the reasons she thought she was.

I knew something was wrong the moment we cleared the concrete stairs and stepped into the lobby. Even from there, I could hear yelling and some serious scuffling a few floors above us. The front desk attendant looked scared and uncertain.

Lilah, somehow suddenly the practical one in the situation, whipped out her phone and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll go take a look and call the police if we have to.”

When we got up to my floor, it was clear what had happened. Dave, my stupid wonderful Dave, had come back to talk to me and had somehow bumped into my stupid stalker. Everly was mostly bumping into Dave’s face with his fist, but he dropped his hand and jumped away when I screamed. Dave stumbled and slid down to the floor, his nose bloody and obviously broken.

In my moment of rage, all I could think was that I was going to _kill_ Everly if Dave’s nose was misshapen after this, because it was my strong opinion that Dave had the cutest nose ever. I shoved Everly into the wall in a burst of adrenaline-spurred strength and then knelt next to Dave, one hand on his shoulder while the other tipped back his head. I’d only gotten a C in my high school First Aid class, but I vaguely recalled that being the protocol for a broken nose. Or maybe it was only for a bloody nose. Crap.

“Are you okay?” I asked, too panicked to be embarrassed that my voice was as high-pitched and frantic as a teenage girl’s.

Dave gurgled incoherently in reply. He tried to wave me off, but his hands were slick with blood. It didn’t inspire much confidence.

“We need to get him to the ER,” Lilah said firmly. She glared at Everly where he was recovering from having the wind knocked out of him and held up one of the five copies I’d had to make at the police station. “You’d better not follow us, ’cause we have a temporary restraining order until the hearing. Look forward to getting served.”

Damn. Lilah the Badass. I would have been more impressed if I hadn’t been busy avoiding  Dave’s blood while I pulled him to his feet.

Everly looked betrayed, but I didn’t have the time to feel sorry for him. Punching people in the face didn’t exactly generate sympathy. Scowling at him, I looped Dave’s arm around my neck and helped him hobble toward the elevator. When I looked back to gesture for Lilah, she had her cell out and was presumably phoning the police. Good girl.

Dave tried to refuse the hospital trip, but Lilah shut him up with the threat of septal hematoma, whatever that was, and he demurely obeyed after that. I pushed him into the backseat of Lilah’s car and climbed in after him, so happy to see him that I hugged his arm and let him bleed on me. The whole drive, I babbled to him about how sorry I was, how Everly was such a dick, and did he hear Lilah threaten him with a restraining order? Because that was true, and I didn’t want him to be angry anymore. I probably would have kept rambling if he hadn’t nudged me with his elbow and looked as reassuring as was physically possible with a profusely bleeding and broken nose.

It was probably the bloody mess down the front of his shirt and all over my hands that got us into a room so fast. Fast for an emergency room visit, anyway. There was still close to an hour of sitting around and filling out paperwork before we were in our own private room and I could hold Dave’s hand and look intensely worried some more.

When it came to it, the doctor explained some medical jargon that basically boiled down to watching for deformities and returning to the hospital if his nose started healing funny. There was the issue of payment, which Lilah, like a goddess of cash and random medical knowledge, took care of with a gold credit card. But as grateful as I was, I was still hanging onto Dave’s arm—Dave, whom I’d thought gone permanently from my life and whom I wanted to talk to very much. Alone. I had to clear my throat three times just to get Lilah’s attention again.

Lilah glanced between the two of us and smirked.

“I can take a hint,” she said, backing out of the room with her purse and payment receipt. “I’ll be in the cafeteria if you need me.”

“Um,” said Dave after she left, gingerly touching his nose just to have something to do with his hands. “I’m not sure what to say.”

“You came back. You don’t have to say anything,” I said, sitting on his bed and smiling. Now that his face was clean and he’d been cleared of any likely physical deformities, I could see the rapidly spreading bruise on his face.

“I owe you an apology.”

I blinked. “For what?”

“For not saying it back in the airport,” he said, looking into my eyes. It was a kitschy romantic moment that I wouldn’t have traded for anything else in life. My breath hitched.

“So?” I prompted.

“So, I love you, Randall Gallagher,” he said shyly.

Butterflies. There was a technical name for them that I didn’t know, but I had them. All in my stomach and throughout my chest, too many to count, every cliché romantic moment I’d ever seen in a movie bundled together. But it was my romantic moment, and it was with Dave, and I touched his bruised face and smiled like an idiot.

“I’m going to have to move again,” I said, light and casual, like I wasn’t thinking about something that was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating and obvious.

Dave sat up and frowned at me. “That’s ridiculous. You can’t keep rearranging your life for this guy. You should just stick it out and call the cops if he shows up.”

I looked at him like the idiot he clearly was. How was he not getting the big picture here?

“Wouldn’t it be easier if I just moved?” I asked.

“Easier like how? Like picking up your life and getting acquainted with a new city just because some arse won’t leave you alone and follow a restraining order?”

“Technically, it was expired, so he wasn’t breaking the law, but no. I meant more like moving to New Zealand.” I felt breathless as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It was a crazy idea, absolutely certifiable, but I couldn’t deny it was what I wanted. Almost immediately, Dave got a panicky look and I could tell he thought it was a bad idea, but I wasn’t letting that stop me again. I leaned forward and hovered over his mouth, watching his eyes dilate and his lips part. I kissed him gently, my hand cupping his cheek, and decided not to give him a choice. “I’m applying for a work visa whether you like it or not. I always liked _Lord of the Rings._ ”

“That’s an awful reason.”

“It is, but my main reason is you.” At his continued look of incredulity, I pushed on, “It’s really for the best, isn’t it? I run an Etsy shop, so I don’t have to worry about finding a job. And I really would feel more comfortable living somewhere far, far away from Everly.”

“We haven’t even known each other a month,” he said, although I could tell he was starting to think about it. “You’re crazy.”

“I know,” I said breathlessly. “I know, it’s absolutely insane. But those two days you were gone were the most miserable of my life and I feel like if I don’t give it a proper shot with you then I’ll regret it for the rest of my life.”

Dave remained unconvinced. He looked pale and small in the hospital bed, his hulking shoulders still pressed against the thin white blanket the nurses had given him.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What about Lilah?”

Stubborn idiot of a man. I put my hands on either side of his face and forced him to look at me.

“She’s a hopeless romantic, so I’m sure she’ll understand. Just please, let me try it. Let me move there and we can date properly. And if it doesn’t work, I can always come back. So what do you say?”

Nothing. For a long time, nothing. I fidgeted, waiting for him to speak, watching the thoughts pass behind his brown eyes.

“The application process takes forever,” he finally said in a warning tone, but then he put his hand on the back of my neck, tugging me down so we could kiss, slow and sweet like our first. He pulled away grinning. It looked like I wasn’t the only crazy one. “But on the bright side, my mum has a guest room.”

I laughed and leaned into him, feeling more relaxed and happy than I had in a long time. There would be a lot to do and get used to, but we’d figure it out. And I definitely wasn’t going to sleep in the guest room.

* * *

After one solid week of packing and mailing oversized boxes to his mom, we were on a plane. To New Zealand. To _New Zealand_.

I didn’t think Dave understood the gravity of this situation, because the fifth time I turned to him in our crowded coach seats and told him we were _on a plane_ to _New Zealand_ , he just looked at me with exasperation and said, “I know, Randy. Trust me, I know.”

But he didn’t know. He couldn’t have. Unless the mixture of excitement and nerves that had me both shaking and smiling was what he’d felt on the plane ride back to the States to see me. Which was possible, I supposed, but this was way bigger, because I was going to meet his _mother_.

“Did you tell her about me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, not even needing to clarify who I was talking about. His ears were turning red.

I didn’t need to be a gossip hound to know he was hiding something.

 “And?” I pressed.

He hunched toward the window, tugging the shade aimlessly up and down. It sent stripes of light over his face that made his eyes look brighter than usual.

“And,” he said grudgingly, “that’s why she loaned me the money to come back.”

“Your mother is my new favorite person in the world,” I told him.

“Yeah.” He flipped up the arm rest between us so he could hook his arm around me and squeeze. “Mumsie is pretty ace for an old lady. I hope you don’t mind living with her for a bit.”

I snorted and said, “And I hope you don’t mind that I plan on convincing you to move out as soon as possible.”

“After you get your visa, maybe,” he said and chastely kissed the top of my hair. “I’m not giving up free room and board until I know you’re sticking around.”

We’d decided that I would have an extended visit as a regular tourist and if things looked like they were working out then I’d apply for the real deal. But that heavy, swelling feeling I got beneath my breastbone whenever Dave looked at me told me that we’d be moving out of his mom’s house real soon.

“I think I’ll stick around,” I said, lightly, as though I wasn’t really sure. He laughed and bumped my shoulder, like he knew I was kidding, and we both settled down to watch the in-flight movie.

When we got off the plane, he asked me to hand him his “sunnies” from our carry-on and tugged me along by the hand to baggage claim. Luckily, it was blissfully similar to every American airport I had ever been in, and I was thinking I could get used to the foreign slang and unfamiliar dialects as long as there were still constants in my life. Like Dave, for one, but also slowly turning baggage carousels that never spat out your luggage until you’d gone to find an attendant.

The butterflies from the hospital were back full force as we trudged outside to wait for the cab to Dave’s mom’s house. Dave had his sunglasses on, shielding his brown eyes, his hair crazy and unkempt from the long plane ride. He actually looked remarkably similar to the first time I’d noticed him, standing behind me on that busy sidewalk as I waited for that flashing red hand to change to a walk sign.

But now when I looked at him I didn’t see a serial killer—I saw someone I strongly suspected was actually the love of my life. And it didn’t matter if we had to live with Mumsie, or if I had to wait months and months to get a visa to live with him. Because with the New Zealand sun in his hair and a tired grin on his face, the way Dave looked at me, I knew he felt the same.


End file.
